



Lr 

















Paddy O’Learey 


AND HIS 

Learned Pig 



ELIZABETH W. CHAMPNEY 

t t 


ILLUSTRATIONS BY FREDERIC DORR STEELE 





NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 


/ 



Copyright, 1895 

BY 

DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 
All rights reserved 

/Z-3/33<p 


THE CAXTON PRESS 
NEW YORK 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. An Irish Fair .... 7 

II. A Pig Market . . . .28 

III. At Killarney . . . *51 

IV. In Hiding 72 

V. The Flight . . . .98 

VI. Blarney Castle and 

Father Matthew . 123 

/ 

VII. The Finding of the 

Luck Penny . 145 




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


CHAPTER PAGE 

Paddy and his Pig . . . Frontispiece 

I. A Scene at the Fair 15 

II. Paddy on the Stone Wall . . . .37 

III. Playing Cards on the Hearth . . .57 

IV. The Ghost House 85 

VI. Starting out from the Rock of Cashel . 133 

VII. The Return Home 161 



CHAPTER I. 


AN IRISH FAIR. 

T was at one of 
the merriest fairs 
ever held in Kil- 
larney that Pad- 
dy O’Learey first 
saw a learned pig. 
It was a wonder- 
ful fair entirely, so Paddy thought, even be- 
fore he saw the pig, what with the hurling, 
where Pat O’Toole “put” the great hammer 
a fabulous distance as easily as Paddy could 
have tossed a ball ; and the dancing to 
Phelim McCarthy’s fiddle, with all the 
pretty girls dressed in their best, their 
bright eyes shining and their red cheeks 
glowing; and the “Vzting!” for Paddy had 
never seen in all his short and hungry life so 
many good things as were set out in the tip- 
carts ranged along the main thoroughfare. 
There was one drawback to his perfect enjoy- 



8 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


ment of the last-named attraction. Though 
Paddy had walked that morning from the 
Desmond estate to the town of Killarney, 
a good eight miles, on a scanty breakfast, 
and had an appetite whetted to the point of 
appreciating all of the pies, turnovers, gin- 
gerbread, and other dainties displayed, his 
mother had provided him with but one penny. 
He could only buy one cake of hard ginger- 
bread, which resembled an ancient Babylon- 
ian tile in its general appearance, and in its 
resistance to his eager teeth. Even this was 
all too soon devoured and failed to fill an 
aching void. 

But Paddy was quite accustomed to going 
hungry, and there was so much to amuse him 
in the fair that he wandered about quite 
happy, listening to the entrancing strains of 
Garry Owen, the Bedfordshire hornpipe, or 
the jolly peddler, and feasting his eyes on the 
brilliant posters which told of the wonders 
to be seen inside the tents. The paintings 
which described the accomplishments of a 
certain educated pig were particularly al- 
luring. 


AN IRISH FAIR 


9 


This extraordinary porker was represented 
performing as many feats as Mother Hub- 
bard’s celebrated dog. He was depicted 
clothed in a pair of green trousers, wearing 
a rakish cocked hat, and as playing upon an 
Irish harp, dancing, reading, drilling as a sol- 
dier, standing upon his head, feigning death, 
carousing and playing many other laughable 
antics. 

Paddy looked longingly at the privileged 
persons who entered the enclosure, but finally 
turned away and consoled himself with fit- 
ting his eye to a knot-hole in the palings of 
the Punch and Judy Theatre, and in watch- 
ing all the other varied scenes which passed 
before him with such joyous tumult. 

There was a quack dentist whp blarneyed 
people into having their teeth extracted for a 
shilling, “with or without pain.” He wore 
a necklace of molars with great fangs, and 
added each new and gory trophy to this can- 
nibalistic rosary, never caring that his victims 
protested with loud howls that their jaws 
were “broke intirely.” 

Perceiving Paddy standing before him with 


10 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


a fascinated stare, the dentist, in a pause in 
his custom, offered to extract one of the boy’s 
sound teeth for nothing, merely as an exhibi- 
tion of his skill. 

Paddy declined this generous offer, and 
hurried away to watch the thimble-man 
swindle the unwary. 

“Only tuppence a guess,” he would cry. 
“Now you see it, and now you don’t. Under 
which of these thimbles, acushla , have I hid 
the pea? You guess right, and I gives you 
tuppence. You guess wrong, and you gives 
it to me.” 

Paddy saw one foolish fellow try ten times, 
winning twice and losing eight times. 

He did not know that the thimble-man 
only allowed his customers to win when he 
saw that their interest in the game could be 
kept up by so doing. If Paddy had possessed 
twopence he would certainly have tried, for 
several times he was quite certain under 
which thimble the pea would be found. As 
he had nothing to risk he watched the for- 
tunes of the others. Among those most in- 
terested was young Charley Desmond, the 


AN IRISH FAIR 


11 


son of the squire on whose estate Paddy 
lived. 

He had often gone otter hunting with the 
young gentleman, and had been his devoted 
follower in many other boyish sports. Paddy 
watched with great interest as Charley Des- 
mond made his guesses, and even volunteered 
his advice as to the thimble which probably 
covered the ball. 

Suddenly Paddy cried out: “The dirthy 
chate ! He’s afther desaving you, sor. The 
ball isn’t under nary thimble. He’s got it 
up his sleeve, sor. Yees can see foryeeself.” 

And suiting the action to the word, he 
passed his hand quickly across the conjurer’s 
little table, overturning every thimble and 
proving true the first part of his statement, 
for none of the thimbles covered the ball. 
The conjurer raised his arm to strike Paddy, 
who dodged, but not nimbly enough, for the 
clinched fist came down upon his shoulder. 
At the same time a shout of derision rose from 
the crowd, for the ball rolled to the ground 
from the swindler’s sleeve. 

Charley Desmond caught the man’s arm 


12 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


and prevented any further abuse of Paddy, 
who squirmed from the thimble-man’s grasp, 
and now stood at a little distance rubbing 
his shoulder and regarding his torn shirt 
rather ruefully. 

“ I owe you something, Paddy,” said Char- 
ley, “ for getting that knock for me, and I’ll 
pay your way into any of the shows which 
you would like to see.” 

“ Plaze your honour, I’d rather see the 
learned pig. Sure, it’s the gintleman, your 
honour is.” 

“The learned pig? That is just what 
Katy wanted to see. She is over there in 
the carriage. We will get her and go in 
together.” 

Kathleen Desmond, Charley’s sister, was a 
dark-eyed girl of fifteen. She nodded pleas- 
antly to the ragged boy, and the three passed 
into the showman’s tent together. 

Paddy was disappointed to see that the pig 
wore only a broad belt of green cloth, instead 
of the trousers in which he had been rep- 
resented. Holes had been cut in his ears, 
and in these bows of green ribbon were 


AN IRISH FAIR 


13 


tied, while a third knot of ribbon adorned 
his tail. 

“And now, me darlint,” said the show- 
man, addressing the pig, 1 ‘ we will perfarm 
the sivinth article of the p’ogramme, and 
answer any questions put by the honourable 
company.” 

The man forthwith placed before the audi- 
ence a frame upon which were hung a num- 
ber of swinging disks. He then led the pig 
back towards the audience and placed a cord 
attached to his collar in Kathleen’s hand. 

“ If yer leddyship will plaze to hould him 
the minute,” he said; “sure, the crayther’s 
that eager for l’arnin’, it’s restraint he’s need- 
ing. Now, if one of the gintlemen will give 
my pig a sum in arithmetic, the answer to 
the which is found here,” and he proceeded 
to chalk the numbers from one to ten on the 
different swinging disks, “the darlint will 
p’int it out for you. For insters, how much 
does two and one, and one and four make, 
Mavourneen? ” 

He nodded to Kathleen to release the pig, 
and as soon as she did so it darted forward, 


14 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


and springing up, hit the disk bearing the 
number eight several times with its nose. 

The showman led the pig back again and 
Charley Desmond asked, ‘ ‘ What is twice 
five? ” 

“Sure, I’ll change the order a bit, to mix 
him,” said the showman, and he rearranged 
the disks. Again, the instant that Kathleen 
let go the string, the pig bounded away and 
knocked the figure ten with great vigour. 

The experiment was performed again and 
again, the pig never making a mistake, but 
striking the correct number each time, and 
apparently enjoying the feat as much as the 
audience. The showman next substituted 
words for the figures, and the pig was told 
to indicate one of these, and again he made 
no mistake. 

Kathleen was filled with wonder and ad- 
miration. “Isn’t he clever, though? Did 
you ever see a pig that knew so much? ” 

But Paddy, who was a prying, sharp little 
fellow, was not so easily taken in. He had 
noticed that the showman, under pretence of 
placing the disks in a different order, hung 









AN IRISH FAIR 


17 


something behind the one which he wished 
the pig to choose, and the boy at once sur- 
mised that it was some dainty of which the 
pig was fond. He determined to watch a 
little longer before exposing the mounte- 
bank, and he merely replied : 

“ Sure, it’s his master that’s clever, I’m 
thinking, and by the same token, if I had a 
bit pig, it’s meself could train him to the 
same tricks and better.” 

“ Oh ! do you think so? But hush, what is 
he saying?” 

“The crayther will now go through his 
catechism like a Christian,” the showman 
announced, and a barrel without head or 
bottom was rolled in. When in place the 
word “Catechism” was discovered painted 
on the side in large letters, and the pig at 
the same instant darted through the barrel. 

‘ ‘ Sure, he’s gone through his catechism 
quicker nor you nor I could do it,” said 
the showman. The audience shrieked with 
laughter, but Charley Desmond cried out 
that this was an old trick. 

“ Sure, and it is, your honour,” the show- 


18 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


man admitted, “and not worth showing to 
your honour; but it’s new to some of the 
craythers. And now I’ll show your honour 
the most wonderful perfarmance of all, for 
the pig will play upon the harp and dis- 
coorse the foinest music, so that you will 
scarce belave so simple a crayther could do 
it.” A small chair was produced, in which 
the pig was tied. He seemed uncomfortable 
and struck out wildly with his fore legs. 

“Whist! Hould still, ye vixen,” said the 
showman. “ Obsarve how impatient he is 
to begin. Distrain yersel’ till I give the 
signal by rapping on the floore. Here, me 
foine fellow (this to Paddy), will yees hould 
his legs till I gives the signal? ” 

Paddy assisted with alacrity, while the 
showman rolled forward a dilapidated harp, 
which he placed between the feet of the 
animal. He then rapped loudly upon the 
floor, and Paddy letting go his hold on the 
swine’s hoofs, it began striking and kicking 
in the most lively manner. It certainly 
seemed impossible that such wild move- 
ments should produce anything but the 


AN IRISH FAIR 


19 


direst discord; but “ St. Patrick’s Day in the 
Morning,” “ Wearing of the Green,” “ Kitty 
Tyrrel,” and other well-known airs were 
recognised. 

1 ‘ Did you ever see anything so wonder- 
ful?” Kathleen asked, her eyes wide with 
amazement. 

“ Plaze you, Miss Kathleen,” said Paddy, 
“ it’s all a thrick intirely. Sure, it isn’t the 
pig’s harp that’s making the music at all, at 
all. I had my ear close to the strings and 
sorra a sound come from thim. Sure, there’s 
some one else playing another harp under 
the floore. Watch me close and see if it 
isn’t so.” 

With a rapid movement, when next the 
showman’s back was turned, Paddy pulled the 
pig away from his instrument. 

The music continued, and the audience 
burst into a roar of derisive laughter. 

The infuriated showman made a dash at 
Paddy, but, made wary by previous encoun- 
ter, the boy dodged adroitly and escaped. 
There seemed to be no prospect of any fur- 
ther performance, for the man refused to 


20 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


show his animal’s skill any longer “ to such a 
set of ignorant, meddling spalpeens.” 

Charley Desmond at length succeeded in 
pacifying him, and the pig was made to 
dance, to drill, and “ to talk French,” which 
he did by replying emphatically, “ Oui, oui, 
oui,” when asked if he was for O’Connell. 
After a few other performances the audience 
was dismissed. 

Paddy was hanging about waiting for the 
Desmonds when they came out. “Isn’t he 
the swindler, though?” Charley remarked. 

“ Sure, that he is.” 

“ But did you see through how he made 
the creature choose the right letters and 
figures in that first trick? ” 

“ As aisy as ’ating, your honour.” 

“ And could you teach a pig to do all those 
things? ” Kathleen asked. 

“ And a hunder more bewilderin’, if I only 
had the pig. Didn’t I tache your dog to do 
more things than you ever thought was in 
the capacity of a brute baste? and it is well 
known that a pig is more knowledgable, 
and more like a Christian mortial intirely.” 


AN IRISH FAIR 


21 


“How long would it take you to educate a 
pig? ” Kathleen inquired. 

“ I’d engage to give you a show the beat 
of this in a year’s time,” said Paddy, confi- 
dently. 

“ It’s such a pity we are going back to 
London next week,” said Kathleen; “I should 
so like to see you train it.” 

“ Begging your leddyship’s pardon,” said 
Paddy, “ sorra a pig have I to train.” 

“ I am going to buy a pig,” Kathleen re- 
plied. “Will you keep it and educate it for 
me until I return? ” 

“Will Oi? Oi’ll take it to the hedge school 
for the Latin. It’s the illegant scholard it 
will be when yees comes back to the Hall. 
A happy day that will be for us all, for there’s 
not a gorsoon on the place but worships the 
ground your leddyship threads on.” 

This was nearly true, for Kathleen had visit- 
ed every cabin on the estate, and knew the 
name of every child, while she was especially 
intimate with the O’Learey children, who were 
their nearest neighbours. There was a little 
pine grove and a long sandbank between 


22 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


them which was their common playground. 
This bank was a fascinating place in which to 
dig caves, and as it was overlooked by the 
O’Learey cabin, to which Kathleen’s nurse, 
pretty Rose Callahan, liked to resort, it was 
a favourite meeting-place of the children. 

Rose Callahan had been brought up in 
Castleisland, Mrs. O’Learey’s birthplace, and 
they liked to gossip about their old neighbours, 
but especially about Mrs. O’Learey’s brother, 
Barney Maloney. While they chatted, Paddy, 
who was a wonderful mining engineer, extend- 
ed his caves far into the bank, strengthening 
them by wooden supports. Kathleen’s imagi- 
nation and varied reading endowed this cave 
with fictitious interest. Sometimes it figured 
as Ali Baba’s hidden treasure-house, broken 
crockery standing for the heaps of gold and 
jewels; and at others it was a cave-temple 
for heathen worship, such as her father had 
told her existed in India, her largest doll rep- 
resenting the idol to be approached only on 
hands and knees. 

Again it was the pirate’s cave described in 
“ Guy Mannering,” and smuggling raids were 


AN IRISH FAIR 


23 


made on the pantry for booty to secrete with- 
in it. 

This highly enjoyable play came to an un- 
timely end, owing to Kathleen’s having been 
buried in the cave by a falling in of the roof 
between her and the entrance. Paddy had 
worked like a beaver, and had dug her out 
before she had time to suffocate ; but Rose 
Callahan had been so frightened that future 
cave-life was strictly forbidden. 

Still, intercourse with the O’Leareys had 
not entirely ceased, for Charley had always a 
troop of ragged urchins at his heels, and 
Paddy was a valuable assistant in otter hunt- 
ing, being able to lure the animals from 
their holes by a clever imitation of their 
bark. When Paddy saw his young master 
and mistress at the fair he felt that he was 
in. luck, as indeed he was, for after the ex- 
hibition of the learned pig, Kathleen took a 
little purse from her pocket and a golden 
guinea from the purse. 

“Aunt Henrietta gave me this for my 
birthday present,” she said, “and I know 
there is nothing I would like so much as a 


24 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


learned pig. Since you are to train it, I 
think it is but fair you should have the 
selecting of it. Will you please buy one for 
me?” 

“Sure,” said honest Paddy, his eyes pro- 
truding in wonder, “it wouldn’t cost more 
than a crown to buy the little slip I’d be 
wanting at the pig market at Castleisland 
next month, and I a-going up to see me 
grandmother.” 

“But it may cost you something to get 
the pig back to Killarney, and you forget 
that you will have to keep him a whole year, 
and then you ought to be paid something for 
his instruction.” 

Thus urged, Paddy accepted the guinea, 
and great was the rejoicing in the O’Learey 
household when he produced it that evening. 

“And the young leddy was quite right,” 
said Paddy’s father, “to give you something 
handsome for the keep of the baste, and as 
that comes out of me, sure I’ll change the 
guinea for you. Here’s your crown, which 
yees can spind at the pig market when yees 
goes to see your grandmother at Castle- 


AN IRISH FAIR 


25 


island, and I’ll kape the remaining rimnant 
on account wid the pig.” 

“ Give it to me, Dinny, avillish ,” said Pad- 
dy’s mother, ‘ * and let me take it up to the Hall 
to pay the rint. It’s two years we’re afther 
bein’ behind, and at that gait of backward 
goin’ we won’t catch up till you and I are 
babies.” 

“ Sure, what’s the use of payin’ at all, at 
all ? Our landlord’s that good he would niver 
evict us.” 

“ Is that the way for an honourable Irish- 
man to talk? I should think you’d be wantin’ 
to pay your just debts.” 

“ And that’s what I am, acushla; I’m owing 
three crowns at the shebeen house, and Mike 
says he’ll trust me no more till I’ve paid up 
my score. Did you mark that, now? Sure, 
it’s mesilf that’s a poet, and I didn’t know it. 
The one dibt is as fair as the other. I’m 
thinkin’ I’ll pay for the whiskey.” 

“ Mike can wait as aisy as our landlord. 
Sure, I’ve heard that Squire Desmond is not 
so rich as he was, and this money came from 
him, and it’s like he knows we have it.” 


26 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


4 ‘There’s no question but that Mike can 
wait,” replied Dinnis O’Learey; “ but kin Oi 
wait ? Answer me that — me that’s been 
awake without a drop of the crayther, barrin’ 
and exceptin’ the poteen we had at Larry 
Lanighan’s wake, and poor stuff it was and 
little of it.” 

“Dinny,” said Mrs. O’Learey, with a 
pleading look in her faithful eyes, “Dinny 
darlint, sure it’s better off you’d be if you’d 
let Mike wait your paymint and niver drink 
another drop the rest of your mortial life. 
Sure, with the pertaty crop that bad that it 
is the winter’s like to be a hard one, and I 
misthrust we’ll hear the childer cryin’ for 
hunger before it’s done.” 

‘ * And will it fill their insides to know that 
I’ve paid my rint?” asked Dennis O’Learey, 
scratching his head. “ It’s a dilemmy in- 
tirely. Kape the guinea for the prisent and 
I’ll ask Feyther Nooney’s advice when I goes 
to confission.” 

Mrs. O’Learey hardly knew what to think 
of this decision, for she doubted whether the 
priest would advise her husband to pay his 


AN IRISH FAIR 


27 


rent, as he was known to be a strong Repeal, 
as well as Catholic Emancipation, agitator. It 
was something that her husband had not in- 
sisted on giving the money immediately for the 
whiskey debt, thus making the way clear for 
future indulgence. Dennis was a kind-hearted 
man when he was not drunk. She heaved a 
sigh as she placed the coin in the toe of an 
old stocking, and hid it behind a loose stone 
in the chimney, and privately determined that 
she would have an interview with the priest, 
and try to win him over to her view of the 
matter before her husband went to confes- 
sion. 



CHAPTER II. 


A PIG MARKET. 

k ^Bother malo- 

* “ NEY, Paddy’s 

grandmother, 
lived in Castle- 
island, a little 
town to the north 
of Killarney. 

Its name is 
misleading, for al- 
though it possess- 
es the ruins of a 
very old castle, 
neither the town 
nor the fortress 
is built upon an island. It may be that the 
river Maine, which flows sleepily by, was 
once deflected by moats and canals to isolate 
the stronghold more completely ; but however 
this may have been in the olden time, the 
castle moat is now dry, and the ruin accessible 



A PIG MARKET 


29 


to every curious visitor who cares to climb a 
low stone wall. 

The owner of the ruin, in one of his rare 
visits to Castleisland, noticed that the venera- 
able pile was being pulled to pieces by the 
townspeople, who found its hewn stones 
“very convanient” for building purposes. 
Wishing to protect the ancient landmark 
from further devastation, he engaged the 
town stonemason, Barney Maloney, Paddy’s 
uncle, to build a wall around the castle. 

On the gentleman’s next visit to his estate 
he found the wall of which we have spoken, 
but on looking within was surprised and dis- 
pleased to discover that the finest part of the 
castle had been demolished. 

“Your bill is big enough, Barney,” said 
the irate owner, “ but the wall seems to be 
only of use to screen depredators. What has 
become of the old donjon keep? ” 

“Troth, I pulled that down, sir,” replied 
Barney, “ to make the wall, and I’m thinkin’ 
that, as it’s hardly high enough, I’d best take 
what’s left of the castle to grow it a fut 
taller.” 


30 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


Barney’s stupidity was entirely assumed. 
He had been more accountable than any one 
else in the past for plundering the stones 
from the ruin, for he looked upon the castle 
as the representation of tyranny, which it 
was the duty of every good Irishman to resist. 
He had hoped, however, that his patron 
would not return so soon, and that he would 
receive his pay for his honest labour before his 
trick was discovered, and he felt it a great 
outrage that his employer refused to compen- 
sate him for building the wall. 

Barney sued the gentleman and the suit 
went against him. The injustice of the de- 
cision of the courts so rankled in Barney’s 
mind that he joined a group of malcontents, 
neglected his work and went about the coun- 
try listening to incendiary speeches against 
landlords and the government. Castleisland 
has always been a hotbed of rebellion, and 
though Barney never advocated resorting to 
violence, there were others who did, and a 
middleman was shot while attempting to col- 
lect rents. The real murderer escaped and 
several innocent persons, Barney among them, 


A PIG MARKET 


31 


were arrested. The unfortunate fellow had 
no confidence in the law, and one night he 
broke jail and fled the country, thereby fas- 
tening the .suspicion of the authorities upon 
himself. 

Paddy’s grandmother lived in a lonely 
cabin at the foot of Clanruddy Mountain. 
Her son Barney had lived with her, had cut 
her peat, cultivated the bit garden, and tended 
the little Kerry cow until the terrible affair 
of the murder. Paddy’s mother was her only 
other living child, and the old woman was 
very lonely now that Barney had gone. She 
was a great talker and dearly loved to tell her 
story. Barney, quite tired out by his rough 
day’s work as a stonemason, would sit on one 
side of the chimney with his pipe between his 
teeth, while his mother sat on the other, 
through tho long winter evenings, the son 
listening, or apparently listening, to the wild 
legends which the old woman would tell over 
and over again. Mother Maloney missed her 
good listener. Sometimes the neighbours 
found her talking to herself, telling the old 
stories over from force of habit. 


32 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


She was delighted to see her grandson, who 
arrived in Castleisland the week before the 
pig market. She hugged him and cried over 
him and blessed him, and talked to him about 
his uncle, to whom she always referred as 
“him that’s gone.” 

Paddy remembered his uncle’s visiting, or 
rather hiding, at their cabin in Killarney, on 
his way to “ furrin parts.” He was a strap- 
ping young man of twenty-five, but he had a 
hunted look in his face. He had knocked at 
Paddy’s window with his blackthorn shillelah 
just as morning was dawning. Paddy’s 
mother had kept her brother for a day, during 
which he had bidden farewell to Rose Calla- 
han, and had sent him on his journey with his 
green and white striped carpet-bag well filled 
with bread and meat and a couple of new 
shirts, which she had just made for her hus- 
band. Dennis O’Learey was a generous man, 
and he gave his brother-in-law all the ready 
money which he had to purchase a steerage- 
ticket to New York, and none of his family 
had seen him since. 

“But he’ll come back,” Mother Maloney 


A PIG MARKET 


33 


would say; “so here’s destruction to his 
innemies, and may I live to see it. But to 
think, to think, Paddy, that you have thrudged 
all the way from Killarney to see your old 
grandmother. The illegant gossoon that 
you’ve grown to be ! Sure, there isn’t another 
in the four counties has such fine large teeth 
or such big feet for his age. It’s no ttirifle 
that they’ll be costing your feyther, I’m 
thinkin’.” 

‘ 1 As for the teeth, Granny, sure, I can ate 
with the best, and by the same token I’ve had 
only an oat cake for my luncheon.” 

Mother Maloney bestirred herself and fried 
a bit of bacon, with some cold boiled potatoes, 
and Paddy made a more enjoyable dinner 
than many a king, washed down as it was 
with a bowl of sweet milk. 

“ And so you’ve come all the way to see 
your grandmother ! ” Mother Maloney re- 
peated. 

“ And to buy a pig,” said honest Paddy. 

“Listen to the likes of him !” exclaimed 
Mother Maloney. “Is it stocking a farm 
you’re contrivin’ ? ” 


34 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


Paddy told her the story of the guinea, in 
which she was much interested. * ‘ And how 
did the dispute between your feyther and 
your mother turn out, me bouchal? I’ll 
warrant Dinny had the best of the argyment, 
for you say they left it to the praste, and 
who iver heard of a soggart (scholate) advis- 
ing any one to pay his rint? ” 

“ Sure, it was Feyther Nooney had the 
wisdom of Solomon, Granny. He might 
have decided for Mike, but my mither got 
the ear of him and tould him how feyther 
was better off without the whisky, and thin 
it was Feyther Nooney who was in a dilemmy, 
for though he had nothing agin our landlord, 
Squire Desmond being an Irishman born, 
niver sending an agent to evict a tenant, 
but calling himself, fri’ndly like, to collect his 
rints, and giving us time when we needed it, 
still it’s a member of the Union that Feyther 
Nooney is, and it’s well known that the Union 
is agin all landlords. Thin, on the other hand, 
Mike is a parishioner of his, and it would 
never do to advise feyther not to pay him. 
So, afther thinking a minute, sure it was an 


A PIG MARKET 


35 


inspiration come to him, and says he — * A 
debt is a debt, Dennis O’Leary, and there’s no 
distinction of parsons. Lay the money aside 
and pay him that conies first to collect his 
dues, and by the same token, you’re owin’ the 
church a small matter of five shillings, and 
the church comes first,’ says he. With that 
feyther paid him and thanked him and told 
me mither, 4 They won’t either of them come 
to collect,’ says he, 4 so it’s a blessing intirely.’ 
But me mither knew that Squire Desmond 
rode along the lawn lake every afthernoon v 
and she planted me by the way to tell him 
would he call for the rint, which I did, and 
much to me feyther’s botherment, up he come 
riding to the doore that very afthernoon. 4 I’m 
hearing you’re in luck, Dinny,’ says he, 4 and 
are desiring, like an honest man, to pay some- 
thing on your rent.’ 4 Bad luck to thim that 
tould you so,’ says feyther; ‘but it’s thrue, 
anyhow, I’ll not denije it.’ And how could 
he do it with me mither counting out the 
shillings before his eyes, for Feyther Nooney 
had broken the guinea ! 

4 4 4 1 suppose you have other debts to pay 


36 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


beside the rint, ’ says Squire Desmond. 6 That 
I have, your haner,’ says feyther, ‘ and there’s 
Mike a-comin’ up the hill to collect his, and 
who the sorra tould him there was money in 
the house I don’t know, and me not knowing 
how we shall get through the winter with 
your haner in Lunnon.’ 

“ ‘I’ve been thinkin’ of that,’ says Squire 
Desmond, ‘ so we’ll just wipe out the old 
account,’ says he, ‘and you needn’t pay a 
penny, and if ye’ll act as gamekeeper in 
my absince and see that there’s no poaching 
in the forest or on the mountain, ye may 
have this cottage rent free, beside all the dead 
wood ye can pick up in the forest.’ 

“Well, my feyther was all struck of a heap, 
and neither he nor my mither could say 
enough in praise an’ thanksgivin’. So there’s 
my feyther with a donkey and a cart to fetch 
wood with, set up for the winter intirely. And 
he has paid off Mike, and can get drunk when- 
ever the fancy takes him, and that’s not 
seldom, for Mike’s shebeen house is on the 
way to the forest, bad luck to it, too convan- 
ient entirely to rest in cornin’ and goin’, and 



I 







A PIG MARKET 


39 


Mike that willin’ to take his pay in faggets.” 
Paddy sighed deeply, but Mother Maloney did 
not share his misgivings. 

‘ t Sure, it’s a dhrap or two of the crayther 
will do him no harm entirely, ” said she. “ It’s 
the landlord and the rint that makes all the 
thrubble in Ireland, and if your feyther has 
a good landlord and no rint, it’s live like a 
lord he may, for there’s more than faggets to 
be got out of the forest, I’m thinkin’.” 

As Paddy evidently did not understand her 
meaning she changed the subject. “ The 
morrow’s market day,” he said. “ A crown’s 
little enough to pay for a pig, but you’ll see 
what your auld grandmither can do for you.” 

The next morning Paddy was up bright 
and early, and walked to town with his grand- 
mother. She was not a pleasant-looking old 
lady in her ordinary indoor costume, which 
consisted of a frieze petticoat and shortgown, 
with wild elf locks straying from under the 
broad ruffles of her soiled cotton cap, and a 
short clay pipe held firmly between the few 
teeth that were left her. She was even less 
attractive in her out-of-door garb — a man’s 


40 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


high hat put on over her cap and fastened 
under her chin with shoestrings, and a long 
red woollen cloak. In summer she went bare- 
foot, though she was often seen knitting 
woollen stockings of variegated hue from 
bits of yarn which kind-hearted neighbours 
gave her. She carried a long crooked staff, 
and looked like a witch, while many people 
believed that she was one. But to Paddy she 
was always so tender and kind that he trotted 
along with his hand in hers quite unconscious 
that she was not a most aristocratic old 
lady. 

The town presented a lively appearance. 
A central strip down the principal street was 
filled with booths and tip-carts, displaying a 
great variety of merchandise. Two other 
rows of carts were backed against the side- 
walks, and Paddy and his grandmother walked 
between them admiring the kids, the donkeys, 
and the sheep grouped for sale. There were 
pigs, too, galore — pigs in droves, litters of 
pigs comfortably cradled in small donkey- 
carts and hand-barrows, and one woman had 
brought some tiny pink-nosed baby pigs on 


A PIG MARKET 


41 


her head in a basket. As Paddy paused in 
front of one of the carts an ancient man in a 
long-tailed blue coat, small clothes, and gait- 
ers, and a dilapidated tall hat, came up half 
leading, half driving a self-willed porker by 
means of a string tied to its hind leg. 

“ Six eggs to you, you divil,” said the old 
man, addressing the swine ; * ‘ six eggs to you, 
and a half dozen of them bad for the dance 
ye’ve led me the day. It’s sell you chape, I 
will, for I’d rather give you away than be 
bothered to take you home.” 

Now, Paddy had determined the moment 
that he noticed this particular pig that it was 
the animal for him, and he spoke up joyfully 
and hopefully, “ Sure, I’ll take it off your 
hands for you, honest man.” 

“ Thin hand me over ten shillings,” said 
the man; “ an’ he’s dirt chape at that. Just 
look at the intelligent face on him ; he’ll ’arn 
his own living pickin’ and st’alin’ from the 
neighbours. He needs no kape at all. There’s 
no fince that’ll kape him out or in. He’ll 
jump thim all, root up a half acre or so of 
praties, take his desart off a dozen cabbages, 


42 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


and be back in his shty, and him a squ’aling 
as innercent for his supper as the babe in the 
cradle.” 

“ Sure, that’s a bad reputation entirely,” 
said Mother Maloney. “ I don’t wonder yeez 
want to get rid of him. Ye’ll not find any 
one in the market will take him as a gift. 
He’d be the ruination of his master.” 

“I’ll take him, and thank you kindly,” 
Paddy persisted. 

“ Sure, you’ve r’ason,” replied the old man, 
and, addressing Mother Maloney, he ex- 
plained: “ It’s truth I’m telling you, that 
this pig would never touch it’s masther’s 
crops, barrin’ a first experiment in that direc- 
tion. Take him three times round the 
garden, b’ating him in the four quarters of it, 
and the baste will never offer to threspass on 
the ragion, but will go right by the most 
timpting display of inions and curlyflowers, 
straight for the circumjacent territory of the 
neighbours. He comes from a knowledgable 
race of blissed bastes, descindints of a pig 
belonging to the howly St. Anthony, who 
was gifted with a moral sinse, and to whom 


A PIG MARKET 


43 


the saint exposited the difference between 
meum and tuum.” 

“ It’s the soggart he is,” Mother Maloney- 
murmured in admiration, and Paddy’s eyes 
glowed with unconquerable desire. “Give 
me the pig,” he exclaimed ; “ it’s just the kind 
I want to learn him thricks.” 

‘ ‘ Sartinly, my little gintleman ; but first, 
where is your haner’s twelve shillin’s ? ” 

“ Faith, you said you would give him 
away,” Paddy wailed. 

“ No,avick, you misunderstood me intirely. 
Fifteen shillings is the price of this illegant 
baste, and by the five crosses, I would take 
no less if I were dying of hunger, for it 
breaks my heart to part with the darlint ; but 
seein’ that it’s in the professional line your 
haner is, and the pig will likely make your 
reputation and your fortune in the two king- 
doms, not speaking of France, Ameriky, 
Dublin, and other furrin parts, why, I’ll not 
be hinderin’ the pig and you from going 
where glory waits you, and he’s yours for a 
pound — fair and square, and neither more nor 
less, so don’t ye be talkin’.” 


44 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


“Ye ould villain !” exclaimed Mother Ma- 
loney; “ ye said yerself but just now that the 
price was tin shillings, which is nine shillings 
too much, for a thinner, hungrier-looking 
crayther I never set eyes on. He would beg- 
gar a nobleman to fatten him, and as to only 
foraging on the neighbours, I’ll not believe a 
word you say. Sure, it’s the lie that slides 
aisily from your tongue, I’ll be thinkin’. 
Come along wid yez, Paddy, and we’ll l’ave 
the auld thafe to drive home his pig come 
the avenin’.” 

Paddy turned reluctantly away. “ I’ll give 
you this for it; it’s all I’ve got,” he said at 
parting, displaying the crown. The old man 
made a derisive gesture, and Mother Maloney 
jerked him angrily along. They approached 
the booths in the centre of the street, and 
she stopped in front of a board placed on two 
barrels, which formed the counter and base of 
supplies over which Mrs. Finnigan was sell- 
ing periwinkles and seagrass which she 
had brought from the west coast. She had 
no thought of business, but began gossiping 
with her old crony on the state of the fisher- 


A PIG MARKET 


45 


ies. “ Sure, they’re very poor,” she said to 
Mother Maloney, “ and all because the fishers 
didn’t open the s’ason accordin’ to former 
custom by taking the praste out with them to 
bless the catch.” 

Paddy did not listen to them, but looked 
back longingly at the pig they had just left. 
He was young, but had none of the cherubic 
chubbiness of youth. His legs were long and 
lean, but cleanly made, the legs of a racer. 
His head had an impertinent cock, his eyes, 
though small, were active and had a sly ex- 
pression, and his saucy snout moved nerv- 
ously, as though he longed to be grubbing 
for succulent roots and tubers. He was 
spotted black and white, the white predomi- 
nating on his fore quarters and the black on 
his rear. This circumstance gave strangers 
a curious surprise when the animal turned 
around, the effect being as if one pig had 
mysteriously disappeared and another had 
been substituted in its place. 

Mother Maloney noticed Paddy’s longing 
look and said : “It isn’t the likes of that pig 
you’re wanting, vick machree. He will in- 


46 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


veigle you into more thrubble thin your life 
is worth. He’s no descindant of St. An- 
thony’s pig. Sure, I knows his race. There 
was a pig as like him as two peas whose ac- 
quaintance I had whin I was a child in Tip- 
perary — the demon pig they called him, for 
he was one of thim bastes into which the 
divils entered what all ran violently down a 
stape place and perished in the say.” 

“ But if they were all drowned, grand- 
mother, how could the demon pig have got 
to Tipperary? ” 

1 1 My explanation of the matter is that this 
particular baste might have swam out to 
some outgoin’ st’amer that was just arrivin’, 
and so have taken free steerage passage 
along with St. Patrick for Ireland.” 

“ Then, I’m sure, grandmother, St. Pat- 
rick’s as good as St. Anthony any day, and 
I don’t want a fat, lazy thing that will ate 
till the brains of him turns to fat an’ good 
looks, like a purty guril what knows her 
vally. I likes the looks of this one, and if 
he’s a demon pig, so much the better. See 
him wrinkle the nose of him. I’ll warrant 


A PIG MARKET 


47 


yees, he’ll undo any latch, and his legs is like 
a greyhound’s ; he’d lead the agint a chase if 
he tried to collect him for the rint, though 
it’s neither agint nor rint to pay that we 
have, praise be to the blessed saints.” 

“ The boy’s clane daft,” said Mother Ma- 
loney. “ It’s a case of thrue love, I’m 
thinkin’, and we all know that the less ray son 
there is in that the more persistence. Whist, 
Paddy, l’ave it to me, and since it’s that pig 
only ye will have, have it ye will ; only don’t 
yees be lookin’ at it. Go and listen to the 
ballad-singer, and purtend ye’re out of con- 
sate with the baste.” 

Paddy joined the circle of people that were 
listening to the blind ballad-singer, but he 
could not forbear glancing from time to time 
in the direction of the owner of the pig, and 
he was glad to see that he found no pur- 
chaser. 

Late in the afternoon his grandmother 
called to him to hurry home with her. 

“ He’s gone,” she explained, “gone home, 
his pig a-trottin’ afther him like a dog. Don’t 
yees be frettin’, his road is our road as far as 


48 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


the cross-ways, and we’ll soon come up 
with him.” 

They overtook the man, who looked up 
hopefully and cunningly as he saw them 
approach, but Mother Maloney apparently 
took no notice of the pig, and Paddy walked 
on whistling as he was told. Mother Maloney 
had her apron full of periwinkles, which her 
friend from the seashore had given her, and 
both Paddy and she munched them as they 
walked, for they had had no other luncheon. 
She talked with the owner of the pig on 
different topics, and he did not notice that as 
she approached the cross-ways she strewed 
her periwinkles along the path at intervals, 
and that the pig ate them greedily. As she left 
him at the cross-ways, he offered her the pig 
for ten shillings, but she scornfully declined 
the proposal, and trudged disdainfully on. 
The tears gathered in Paddy’s eyes, but he 
hurried away the faster that he might not 
show his emotion. 

Suddenly he heard a galloping and snorting 
behind him, and turning, saw that the demon 
pig was following them, while its owner was 


A PIG MARKET 


49 


panting and shouting far behind. “ Whist, 
Paddy,” said Mother Maloney, “look not to 
the right hand nor to the left.” Here she let 
fall a handful of periwinkles. ‘ ‘ Sure, the pig’s 
a darlint, and he’s as much in love with you 
as you with him.” 

She quickened her pace and pretended not 
to hear the shouts of the irate man. When 
he overtook them, and they could no longer 
feign to be unconscious that the pig had 
followed them, Mother Maloney ordered him 
to take his “baste” away, and protested that 
she would not take him as a gift, at the 
same time shaking the last periwinkles from 
her apron and walking resolutely into her 
cottage. 

The swine followed her impudently, and 
Mother Maloney could be heard scolding and 
dealing vigorous blows with her broom, but 
the blows fell harmlessly on her bed, and the 
pig was supping from a saucer of milk which 
she had placed for it behind the door. 
“Come, rid me of the baste,” she cried, 
appearing in the doorway with the broom in 
her hand. The man hesitated, and turned 


50 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


to Paddy. 4 ‘ Give me the crown yees offered 
me and he’s yours.” 

“ Sure, he spent his crown at the market,” 
Mother Maloney shrieked, but she was too 
late, for Paddy had thrust his coin into the 
man’s hand and rushed overjoyed into the 
cottage to embrace his demon pig. 



CHAPTER III. 


AT KILLARNEY. 

P ADDY was awak- 
ened the next 
morning by the 
squeals of his 
pet. “He’s cry- 
ing for hunger,” 
Mother Maloney 
explained. “He’s 
V that knowledgable he follyed 
T me to the shed and watched 
me at my milking, and now he’s rampant, 
he is, because I won’t fade him before yees 
has had yees breakfast.” 

Paddy quickly divided his porridge and 
milk with his pig, and then expressed his 
desire to be off for home. To this Mother 
Maloney was very loth to consent. 

“ Sure, it’s lonely I’ll be without yees,” 
she pleaded. “Why can’t yees be con- 
tint to stay here in the place of him that’s 
gone ? ” 

Paddy declared that he could not live away 

51 



52 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


from his own home, but proposed that his 
grandmother should return with him, and 
the old lady, having taken the time of once 
smoking of her pipe to consider, consented. 
She did not even delay for a sale of her 
effects, for there was nothing left in the 
cabin worth selling. Her provisions were 
nearly exhausted. She had nothing with 
which to face the coming winter but the 
little Kerry cow, and she knew that it would 
be seized on the next rent day. She there- 
fore laid her only decent coverlet on the 
floor, and tying what property she had that 
was worth moving in one great bundle, she 
carried it with Paddy’s help to the cross- 
roads and waited until the carrier’s cart 
came jingling along, when she begged the 
transportation of the bundle to Killarney, 
asserting that the expressage would be paid 
by her son. 

This done she returned to the cabin, and 
tying a string to one of the hind legs of the 
pig, and a rope about the neck of the cow, 
she bade farewell to the poor cabin which 
had served her so long as a home. 


AT KILLARNEY 


53 


Paddy had great difficulty in inducing his 
pig to move forward until he followed his 
grandmother’s advice to pull the animal by 
the tail. “For thin,” said she, “he’ll be 
that certain that it’s to Castleisland yees 
want him to go, that he’ll be off like mad in 
the conthrary direction.” 

Mother Maloney’s son-in-law was not over- 
rejoiced when he learned that she had come 
to visit him for the winter; but hospitality is 
a marked trait of the Irish peasant, however 
poor, and Dennis would have scorned to re- 
fuse shelter to his wife’s mother. He reflect- 
ed also that the little Kerry cow was a very 
desirable addition to their live stock, and its 
milk a fair return for Mother Maloney’s 
board. 

For a time things apparently went well 
with the family. To have their rent free, 
and all their wood for the gathering, was suf- 
ficient wages for Dennis’s light duties as game- 
keeper. Many a hare and a pheasant, too, 
came back from the forest in his donkey-cart 
hidden under the fagots, and as this contra- 
band game was accepted at the shebeen house 


54 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


instead of money, Dennis drank more and 
more, and took no pains to cultivate his 
potato plot, or indeed to do any kind of work. 

It was of no use to dig the potatoes, for it 
was in 1846, the first year of the great famine; 
the blight had fallen on the plant, and they 
were not too fit to eat. Many of their neigh- 
bours were suffering, but as yet the O’Leareys 
were not in distress, and all hoped for better 
times the coming year. 

The Desmonds had left the country, and 
the great Hall was vacant. The ivy did its 
best to cover the stately old building and 
hide the disrepair. Squire Desmond was 
wont to say that there were only two things 
about the building which were not falling to 
pieces — the ivy and the mortgages. 

Financial and other troubles had soured 
the Squire. Though an off-shoot of a noble 
family, and the heir to many broad acres, he 
was land-poor and disappointed in all his am- 
bitions. It pained him to see the ruin staring 
him in the face, not only on his own estates, 
but throughout the country, and he decided 
that he would leave Ireland. 


AT KILLARNEY 


55 


“ I will rent the estate,” he said to him- 
self, “ for the rest of my life, and live hence- 
forth on the continent.” 

Paddy went up to the Hall, the day before 
the Desmonds left, to bid Miss Kathleen good- 
by, and to show her the pig which he had 
bought with her gift. 

Kathleen was much pleased with the 
bright, frisky little animal, and Paddy prom- 
ised to have it finely instructed by her return. 
“ Sure, he’ll know Latin and dancin’ by that 
time, Miss Kathleen. I’ll take him with 
me to the hedge school and to mass, and 
ye’ll not be ashamed to own him as a rela- 
tion.” 

“ He is a jolly, saucy little fellow, at any 
rate,” said Kathleen; “he will probably be 
changed when I see him again. I am go- 
ing to make a picture of him as he looks 
now.” 

While Paddy held the cord, Kathleen made 
a few characteristic lines, which really gave 
something of the spirit of the pig, supple- 
menting the drawing with a couplet to re- 
mind her still further of her pet. 


56 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


“ This is the pig who, nose in air, 

And small tail crisply curled, 

When all the future seemed most fair, 

Set out to see the world ” 

“ But, Paddy,” she added, “he ought to 
have a famous name. Have you decided what 
to call him? ” 

“No, miss. I'd rather you’d have the 
namin’ of him, if you’d be so kind.” 

“ Then we will call him Finn ma Cool.” 

“ Was he an Irishman, miss ? ” 

“Yes, Paddy, Irish of the Irish, the leader 
of the Feni, a warlike tribe who lived cen- 
turies before St. Patrick. Finn was a great 
hero, but he was imprisoned by enchant- 
ment one day when he went hunting in 
the forest of the quicken trees, a kind of 
mountain ash, that as quickly as they were 
cut down shot up saplings which wove their 
branches together and kept him in. Beware 
of mountain ashes, Paddy, or you and Finn 
may come to grief.” 

“ And if he never came out of his thrap, 
how did folks know of it, to be sure ? ” 

“ One of his followers, a poet named Oisin, 
went away to England on the day that Finn 


m 














AT KILLARNEY 


59 


went hunting. He went to court a beautiful 
lady who was a witch, and she did not wish 
him to leave her, so she enchanted him, and he 
stayed with her, as he supposed, three years, 
but really it was three hundred. Finally he in- 
sisted on going back to find Finn, and when 
he reached Ireland he found that all the Feni 
were dead and people had forgotten all about 
them, for it was three hundred years since 
Finn had gone hunting in the forest of the 
quicken trees. But Oisin searched for him 
and found that the forest itself had died and 
grown black like bog oak, but still, closely 
braided together, it shut in the bones of Finn. 
Then Oisin went to St. Patrick and told him 
all this story.” 

“ Sure, it’s a wonderful story intirely, but 
if St. Patrick said it was thrue I’ll not disbe- 
lieve it, and will name the pig Finn ma Cool ; 
but by the same token, be you gone one year 
or three, Miss Kathleen, it’ll seem three hun- 
der to me till I hear your foine stories and 
your swate singing again. Won’t you sing 
me one little song before you go, Miss Kath- 
leen? ” 


60 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


“Certainly, Paddy. Come into the house 
and I will sing you my favourite one, 1 Rich 
and Rare.’ ” 

The girl made a beautiful picture as she 
stood by the old Irish harp, and Paddy, who 
sat in the window where he could hold the 
pig by its tether, had eyes only for her, and 
allowed Finn ma Cool to grub up a whole bed 
of tulips while she sang. 

He never forgot the singer or the words 
of the ballad. 

“ Rich and rare were the gems she wore, 

And a bright gold ring on her wand she bore ; 

But oh ! her beauty was far beyond 
Her sparkling gems or snow-white wand. 

‘ Lady, dost thou not fear to stray 

So lonely and lovely through this bleak way ? 

Are Erin’s sons so good or so cold 
As not to be tempted by woman or gold ? ’ 

‘ Sir Knight, I feel not the least alarm, 

No son of Erin will offer me harm, 

For though they love beauty and golden store, 

Sir Knight, they love honour and virtue more.’ 

On she went, and her maiden smile, 

In safety lighted her round the Green Isle, 

And blessed for ever was she who relied 
Upon Erin’s honour and Erin’s pride.” 


There were hard times in store for the 
O’Leareys, when the handsome porker would 


AT KILLARNEY 


61 


have realised a comfortable sum at the county 
market, or have made delectable flitches of 
bacon for the almost starving family, but 
Paddy always insisted that Finn ma Cool was 
Miss Kathleen’s pig, not given him, but 
simply entrusted to his care, and very hon- 
ourably he fulfilled his trust. 

He began at once with Finn’s education, 
teaching him first the tricks which he had 
seen done by the performing pig at the fair. 

Father Nooney was instructing a class of 
young catechumens preparatory to confirma- 
tion, and as Paddy went on every Friday to 
the priest’s house to recite his catechism, he 
took Finn with him, striving as they walked 
to teach the animal the catechism, and in- 
deed Finn was nearly as intelligent as some 
of the boys into whose heads the reverend 
father attempted to beat the answers to the 
questions. 

Mother Maloney possessed a very ancient 
and dirty pack of cards, with which it was 
her wont to while away the long evenings by 
playing solitaire. Paddy used to watch her 
as he sat on the creepy-stool in the opposite 


62 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


corner of the ingle, with his chin in his hand 
and his elbow on his knee, and one evening 
his grandmother, tired of arranging and 
rearranging the cards on the hearth-stone, 
offered to. teach him to play the venerable 
game of “blind-hookey,” placing the creepy- 
stool between them as a table. Paddy had a 
head for cards, and Mother Maloney fre- 
quently invited him to play with her. So 
one day Paddy prevailed upon her to allow 
him to bring Finn ma Cool into the cabin 
and teach him the game. This he did by 
spreading the cards in front of the pig, 
and when it was his turn to play, deftly slip- 
ping a shelled acorn under the proper card. 
Finn would make a dash forward, push the 
card toward them with his snout and devour 
the acorn beneath it. This, it will be seen, 
was only an adaptation of the trick of the 
swinging disks performed at the fair. Paddy 
had gained considerable manual dexterity, 
and continued to introduce the acorn so 
adroitly as not to be discovered by Mother 
Maloney, whose eyes were no longer so sharp 
as her tongue. 


AT KILLARNEY 


63 


This simple device was varied in a hundred 
ways, and served as the basis of teaching the 
pig the catechism. Paddy practised this feat 
on the mud floor of the vestry, while waiting 
Father Nooney’s arrival, to the gaping won- 
der of his fellow-catechumens. His custom 
was to spread a suit of cards before Finn 
and then ask one of the questions having 
a numerical answer, as, “How many sacra- 
ments are there? ” 

Instantly the pig turned the seven-spot, 
while Rory O’Flannagan repeated : “ Baptism, 
conflammation, ewcharist, pennies, extreme 
onions, howly order, and matrimony. He’s 
right, the crather.” 

“ How may sins cry to Heaven for venge- 
ance? ” 

Over went the four-spot. 

“Nay,” said Phelim Malloy, “there’s but 
three : wilful murder, the sin of Sodom, and 
oppression of the poor.” 

“ Sure, you’ve forgotten defrauding labour- 
ers of their wages, and that’s worst of all. 
Sure, the baste knows more than you do, 
Phelim. Try him again.” 


64 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


“ Thin how many mysteries of the rosary 
are there? ” asked Phelim, with a sly look. 
“ He can’t answer that, for there are fifteen, 
and yees haven’t a card with fifteen spots 
to it.” 

“Can’t he answer them?” Paddy replied 
derisively, as he laid down two more cards, 
and Finn turned three fives in succession. 
“ There’s the foive of hearts, that’s the foive 
joyful mysteries; and the foive of spades, 
thim’s the foive sorrowful mysteries; and the 
foive of diamonds, thim’s the foive glawrious 
mysteries ! ” 

In like manner the pig turned the four tens 
to tell the number of days in Lent, the ten 
of clubs to represent the Commandments, the 
three of hearts for the theological virtues, 
the eight of diamonds for the beatitudes, the 
four and ten of clubs for the fourteen stations 
of the cross. 

The boys were so interested that they had 
not noticed the coming of the priest, who 
stole silently into the vestry and observed 
the performance, at first with amusement, 
and at last with superstitious dread, being 


AT KILLARNEY 


65 


convinced that the pig was possessed by the 
evil one. 

Father Nooney was something of an exor- 
cist, having practiced with great success on 
several old women afflicted with imaginary 
disorders. He seized the holy- water can and 
was about to empty the contents on the pig 
when a sudden thought struck him. He 
left the room as silently as he had entered,, 
and betaking himself to the kitchen of 
his own house, filled the can with boiling 
water from the tea-kettle. Then returning, 
just as Finn’s exercise had ended, he or- 
dered Paddy sternly to hold the beast while 
he put him through a few more questions 
from the catechism. Paddy trembled, for 
there was malice in Father Nooney ’s eye as 
he asked: 

“Have the holy fathers and the ancient 
church writers left upon record any miracles 
done by holy water ? ” 

The pig was silent, and Paddy replied: 
“ Plaze, sor, he can only answer by the con- 
figuration of the cards.” 

“ Ow! Thin answer yersel’.” 


06 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


“ Plaze, sor, they have, agin magical en- 
chantments and the power of the divil.” 

“Right you are. See St. Epiphanius, St. 
Hierome,Theodeus, Palladius, and the Histor- 
icus Ecclesiasticus. Now, all you repate in 
consart ‘ Oxis doxis glorioxis ! ’ ” and Father 
Nooney threw the false holy water, can and 
all, at Finn ma Cool. But Paddy, perceiving 
his intention, had let go the tether, and his pet 
escaped with only a sprinkle of the scalding 
fluid s which descended more liberally on his 
own bare feet. 

From that time hatred and distrust of 
his spiritual instructor took firm root in 
Paddy’s soul, and he looked for an op- 
portunity to pay him back. His revenge 
came at last and will be related pres- 
ently. 

In the meantime, Finn, though under the 
ban of the Church, attended every wedding 
and wake in Killarney, and never failed to 
create great amusement, and to gather in a 
few pennies for Paddy. 

He presently developed a new talent, which 
commended itself to Dennis as well. When- 


AT KILLARNEY 


67 


ever Paddy went to the forest to assist his 
father in gathering wood he took Finn with 
him, and Paddy taught the pig to fetch and 
carry sticks. One day he brought a young 
hare back and laid it at Paddy’s feet. Paddy 
raised his arm to beat Finn, but his father 
stopped him. The incident convinced Dennis 
that Finn could be taught to hunt like a sport- 
ing-dog. He knew that his son would not be 
a party to such a proceeding, and after this 
he left him at home, but took Finn with 
him. 

Finn grew to enjoy this very much and 
would squeal with impatience to be taken 
on the excursions. He would trot around to 
the different traps and snares which Dennis 
had laid, sometimes showing great intelli- 
gence in springing them, and would come 
galloping back to his master’s cart with the 
pheasant or hare in his mouth. He even 
learned to point and course the game, never 
offering to devour it himself. His keeping 
cost very little, for he made his living chiefly, 
indeed, from other people’s gardens, as had 
been predicted, never touching anything that 


68 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


grew in the O’Leareys’ plot. His peculiar 
marking, white spotted with black from nose 
to middle, and black spotted with white from 
middle to tail, had given rise to many amus- 
ing experiences and had once saved him from 
the just reward of his depredations; an ad- 
venture which happened in this wise: The 
gardener at the great house, as Desmond 
Hall was called, happening to look into his 
celery trench, was “ consternated ” to find all 
the crisp sprouts eaten off or broken. Look- 
ing up, he saw the evident perpetrator of this 
mischief — a pig worming its way through the 
hedge. He hastily followed it, “a stern 
chase proving a long chase,” and the pig 
soon disappearing in a gully which led toward 
the gamekeeper’s cottage. 

The irate gardener presented himself 
shortly at the door, calling for vengeance 
on a black pig which had destroyed his 
celery. 

Paddy was dismayed, but a look of cunning 
showed itself on Mother Maloney’s shrewd 
"--.features : 

“ Sure, we’ve but the one pig here, and 


AT KILLARNEY 


69 


him slaping as innercent as the babe in its 
stoy.” And she led the gardener trium- 
phantly to the rear of the cabin, and showed 
him Finn reposing peacefully, half in and 
half out of the keg which served him as a 
sort of kennel. 

There was surely something uncanny about 
the creature; he lay with his chin on one 
fore hoof, his saucy pink snout turned up, 
one eye sleepily closed, the other regard- 
ing the company with an expression of con- 
scious innocence all unafraid. “It’s the 
blessed lamb he is,” said Mother Maloney, 
and, save for a few inky spots, all that was 
visible of the pig was of a lamb-like white- 
ness. He was utterly unlike the impish black 
pig which the gardener had seen squirming in 
the hedge and scurrying before him down the 
hill, and baffled and deluded, the man reluc- 
tantly took his leave. 

It was some little time after this that 
Paddy conceived the idea of utilising this 
physical peculiarity still further. He asked 
his granny to make Finn a little coat of black 
cloth and a petticoat from an old white silk 


70 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


handkerchief. Paddy had taught the animal 
to stand erect, and when clothed in the black 
coat, the trim black legs continued the “ colour 
scheme,” and gave him the appearance of a 
natty little gentleman. As the coat was cut 
low in the front, the white throat of the pig 
carried out the idea of a shirt-front, and in 
this guise, resting one hoof on a walking- 
stick, and wearing a cocked hat, Finn posed 
as a beau. Snatched behind the door, the 
coat was removed, the white silk petticoat 
took its place, a bit of white net, such as the 
Killarney girls used as the web of their lace, 
was thrown over Finn’s head and shoulders, 
which gleamed white through its meshes, 
and he was introduced as a bride, and it was 
difficult, indeed, to believe that one actor had 
taken both parts. 

Sometimes when his rustic audience ap- 
plauded the really clever performances of his 
pupil, Paddy longed for wider appreciation, 
and he thought how fine it would be to 
trudge away to larger towns and exhibit his 
pet at the great fairs; but he had a strong 
home attachment, and he loved his mother so 


AT KILLARNEY 


71 


dearly that only a desperate crisis could 
induce him to such a step as this. 

Very steadily and swiftly that crisis was 
approaching. 



CHAPTER IV. 


IN HIDING. 


LTHOUGH the 
potato crop had 
failed during the 
past season, and 
was likely to do so 
again, and Dennis 
drank more and worked not a whit, the family 
were hopeful, for they relied for the coming 
winter on the perquisites which they had en- 
joyed from Dennis’s office as gamekeeper. 

Much to their disappointment and dismay 
this means of a livelihood was suddenly cut 
off from the O’Leareys. The tenant who 
rented Squire Desmond’s place had no knowl- 
edge of the verbal contract between the 
Squire and his gamekeeper, and even refused 
to believe that Dennis had been called to that 
office. The Squire, in the multiplicity of his 
cares, had forgotton to mention it, and the 
new tenant insisted that Dennis should pay 

72 



IN HIDING 


73 


rent for his cottage, and should forego the 
privilege of gathering wood in the forest. 
He even hinted of his intention to prosecute 
him for poaching. 

Dennis protested his inability to pay rent, 
but the tenant pointed to his live stock. 
“ You have a donkey, a cow, and a pig, and 
can raise money on them, and if the rent is 
not ready for me when I come again I will 
seize the live stock.” 

“ The curse of Jeffrey Lynch be on you ” 
cried Mother Maloney, “and may you carry 
his coal of fire in your bosom to the end of 
your days.” 

The entire family united in lamentation 
and malediction that evening, but the next 
morning, being market-day at Ballyma- 
gooley, Dennis led the cow away, announcing 
his intention to sell it. The little animal 
seemed to understand the situation, for it 
struggled and lowed, while the children fol- 
lowed in a weeping procession for quite a 
distance, the cottagers coming out of their 
houses to give their opinion of the hard- 
hearted landlord. 


74 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


Paddy came back to the house when quite 
tired and found his grandmother crouched 
in the chimney corner. He fancied that she 
must be overcome with grief, for she had 
manifested an amount of self-control quite 
foreign to her nature when the cow was led 
away. 

“ It is too bad, Granny,” he said, putting 
his hand in hers. “ The new landlord has no 
right to take Mooley, for she does not belong 
to feyther, but to you, and feyther has no 
right to sell her from you.” 

“ Don’t be afther judging your betthers,” 
said Mother Maloney. “ What your feyther’s 
done he’s done with my consint; but the land- 
lord will niver resave a pinny from the sale 
of the cow. May he sup sorrow for this day, 
and may the coal of Jeffrey Lynch burn into 
his heart and his brain.” 

“What is the coal of Jeffrey Lynch, 
Granny ? ” Paddy asked. 

“ And you not to know, who have lived in 
sight of his house since yees been born ! ” 

“ Do you mean the house without a roof, 
on Purple Mountain, that everybody says is 


IN HIDING 


75 


haunted ? I’ve seen every windy of that 
house lighted up in the avenin’, and once 
feyther said, ‘ Jeffrey Lynch’s coal of fire is 
flaming high the night, and by the same 
token some poor people are being evicted 
from their homes without marcy.’ Whin I 
axed him what Jeffrey Lynch’s coal was he 
said it was a Satan’s keepsake that the divil 
gives every bad man in this life as a foretaste 
of what’s to come. But thin I don’t under- 
stand him at all, at all; for they say Jeffrey 
Lynch is long dead ; any way, I’ve seen his 
tombstone in the burying-ground.” 

“ Have you niver heard the story ? ” asked 
Mother Maloney. “ It goes this way. Jeffrey 
Lynch was a middleman. He rinted land of 
the earl, and thin he rinted it again on a 
profit to the poor farmers ; and if they were 
the laste pinny behind he evicted them ivery 
time, though he supped sorrow for it there- - 
after. 

“Well, he died, sure, and though he was a 
bad, cruel man intirely, and must have known 
he had no right in the primises, it was the like 
insurance that was in him to take stage-coach 


76 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


for heaven, as though he had a billet signed 
by the pope giving the angels orders for his 
lodging and entertainment. Whin he knocked 
at the gate, says St. Peter, says he, ‘ Who’s 
there ? ’ 

“ ‘I’m Jeffrey Lynch of Killarney.’ 

“ ‘ I know you,’ says Peter, 1 you murderin’, 
rack-rintin’ ould vagabond. You evicted 
your tinants; you must seek your lodgings 
further down,’ says he. 

“ So he takes the back stairs to Purgatory, 
and at the doore, thim that runs that board- 
ing-house axed him what his business had 
been. 

“ ‘ I was a land-grabber,’ says Jeffrey. 
‘ Sure, I niver thought to put up with the likes 
of such company as this, but as it’s go furder to 
fare worse, if you make me comfortable and 
give me the best of iverything you’ve got, I’ll 
condescind to patronise this establishment.’ 

“ ‘ Did you evict your tinants ? ’ says the 
landlord of Purgatory. 

“ ‘ I evicted some,’ says Jeffrey. 

“ 1 Thin consider yourself evicted,’ says the 
landlord, a-handin’ back his gripsack, heavy 


IN HIDING 


77 


with the earnin’s of starving people, and Jef- 
frey Lynch, he went a round low r er of the lad- 
der. 

“ 1 This way, sor,’ says the ouldboy, a-takin’ 
down the key of number two hundred million 
from the hook and reaching for Jeffrey’s 
overcoat. 1 That’s a basement room,’ says 
he, ‘ convanient to the furnace. You’ll not 
complain of slapin’ cold,’ says he. ‘ But first 
have the politeness to inscribe your name on 
the hotel register.* 

“ 1 I’m Jeffrey Lynch, of Killarney,’ says 
Jeffrey; but so soon as he uttered his name 
all of the evil spirits in the siminary raised 
one yell. * Give him a coal of fire and sind 
him back to Killarney,’ screams they, * or 
he’ll evict us all.’ 

“ So back he was obliged to trot. And that 
is the r’ason that he lives in his house alone 
on Purple Mountain to this day, though the 
thatch has been gone this fifty year from the 
roof, and the moss has kivered his name on 
the tombstone. Many a night honest folk 
belated see that bit coal that Satan gave 
him, and that same Satan’s keepsake is re- 


78 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


morse, mind you that, Paddy; they see that 
coal, I say, shining red in his windy, a warn- 
ing to hard landlords who have any desire to 
live in another country than this after they 
die.” 

“ And won’t feyther get a Satan’s keep- 
sake, too, for st’aling Squire Desmond’s 
pheasants? ” Paddy asked. 

“ Hoot, toot!” replied his grandmother, 
who did not relish this application of her 
parable. “ Sure, there couldn’t be coals 
enough in the pit to go round, if Satan wasted 
them by giving them away for a little thing 
like that.” 

When Dennis came home that evening 
there was a whispered conference between 
his mother-in-law, his wife and himself, and 
all seemed well pleased, though there was a 
pretence at sniffling. 

“ And how much did yees get for the cow ? ” 
Paddy asked. 

“ Don’t yees be afther asking onconvan- 
ient questions,” Mother Maloney exclaimed. 
“ Whin the landlord comes and asks that same 


ye’ll be glad yees can’t answer.” 


IN HIDING 


79 


The younger children cried that night 
because Paddy told them there would be no 
milk for their porridge at breakfast, but 
what was their surprise on rising to see a 
pail of milk standing on the table as usual. 

‘ 1 It’s the kindness of one of the neighbours, ” 
said Dennis, and Paddy wondered who had 
been so generous. The wonder grew, for the 
milk was there every morning. Late one 
night as Paddy lay in the little loft over the 
kitchen, which was his bedroom, he heard 
some one open the door and enter the kitchen 
stealthily. He slipped from his bed and ap- 
plied his eye to a crack in the floor, and saw 
his father with the pail of milk in one hand 
and a lighted lantern in the other. 

It was plain that Dennis went for the milk 
secretly, and a suspicion smote the boy that 
it was stolen. He had never eaten of the 
broiled pheasants and hares which his father 
brought from the park, and now he could not 
touch the milk. At first he had scruples 
about allowing Finn ma Cool to drink it, but 
concluded that as the animal had no soul he 
could not be depraved by it, and as both pig 


80 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


and milk belonged to the Desmonds, it might 
not be wrong for them to travel in company. 
But he was troubled for his father, both for 
the sin and the danger; for it was a very 
daring thing to slip into Squire Desmond’s 
barns and milk the cows by night, and Paddy 
knew that if his father were discovered, the 
new landlord would not condone the offence. 

He could only protest by declining the 
milk at breakfast, and eating his porridge 
with only salt to make it palatable. 

But there was more trouble in store for 
Paddy. Rent day was approaching, and he 
overheard his father say to his mother that 
the landlord would probably seize Paddy’s 
pig. * ‘And I shan’t hinder him,” Dennis 
asserted, “for I happened to be walking with 
Finn outside the park, and the crayther 
squeezed himself through the hedge and 
caught a fine rabbit and brought it outside to 
me, which was all very well, and knowledg- 
able in the baste, and he’s done that same be- 
foore. But bad luck would have it that the 
gardener saw him do it, and though he 
couldn’t arrest me for poaching, for I was not 


IN HIDING 


81 


on the preserves at all, at all ; he would have 
it that I had taught the pig the thrick, and he 
said he would shoot him the next time he 
caught him. So it’s fearful I am the baste 
can’t be broken of its bad habits. It must be 
the ould innemy taught him ; and if he’s shot, 
sure we won’t be allowed the ’atin’ of him; 
and it’s just as well not to anger thim that has 
authority. We don’t want to be evicted like 
the O’Donovans, and we can spare the pig 
better than the donkey, and sure, if he gets 
the pig, maybe he’ll be asking no questions 
about the cow.” 

The landlord have Finn ma Cool ! Paddy 
could scarcely believe his ears, for Finn was 
not his pig, but Miss Kathleen’s; surely his 
mother would say so. But no, for she only 
replied that perhaps it would be better to let 
the donkey go and kill the pig and salt him 
down for the winter. 

Kill Finn ma Cool ! Eat Finn ma Cool ! The 
very idea made Paddy quite sick. There was 
only one sympathetic friend to whom he 
could go in his distress, and that was his 
grandmother. 


82 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


“ Hide the crayther until after rint day,” 
she counselled. “ Your mither’s right; the 
pig is worth more than the donkey, for not a 
stiver of work does Dinny do with the cray- 
ther, and it’s many a penny you’ve brought 
in on fair days and from weddings, from the 
divartisement of your pig, to say nothin’ of its 
poachin’, which might be restrained in proper 
limits.” 

The more Paddy thought over his grand- 
mother’s advice the more reasonable it seemed 
to him, and that very night, an hour after all 
the family had retired, he slipped down from 
his loft, took Finn ma Cool from his sty, and 
started with him up the side of Purple Moun- 
tain. For Paddy had decided that the safest 
hiding-place for his pig would be the haunted 
house of Jeffrey Lynch. No one in Killar- 
ney, he felt sure, would be so foolhardy as to 
dare to explore it, and his own heart beat 
rather faster than usual at the idea of ventur- 
ing into that ill-omened place by night. 

It was true that he had made up his mind 
to the very rational conclusion that the red 
light in the windows, or rather on them, 


IN HIDING 


83 


which was visible nearly every evening, was 
only the reflection of the sunset; but the 
story might be true, after all. The windows 
were quite dark now, and if there had not 
been moonlight Paddy would not have been 
able to distinguish the house on the sombre 
hill or find his way along the thickly wooded 
path. But he had often been out much later 
than this on his way home from wakes and 
merry-makings, and he whistled “ The Devil’s 
Dream ” to keep up his spirits. He thought 
of the legend of the quicken trees as he 
pushed his way through the thicket which 
surrounded the house, and his blood ran cold 
as he came out in front of the deserted house 
to see that the windows were really lighted 
from within, and the light shone through the 
naked rafters and outlined them like gallow’s 
trees against the sky. The light was not 
stationary, but moved about within the house, 
and Paddy would certainly have beaten a 
precipitate retreat had not Finn ma Cool 
walked coolly up to the front door, where he 
stood squealing for admittance. 

“ It’s hoping I am that Jeffrey Lynch has 


84 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


bad eyesight in his ears,” said Paddy to him- 
self, as he approached cautiously and en- 
deavoured to secure his pig. As he did so a 
pair of horns and a great dark head suddenly 
raised themselves before the lighted window, 
and Paddy stood rooted to the ground with 
horror, thinking that Satan himself must have 
come to visit his faithful servant, Jeffrey 
Lynch. Another instant and what was his 
amazement to see his own father within the 
haunted house. Paddy had never had a high 
respect for his father, but he had never be- 
lieved him so wicked as to keep company 
with Jeffrey Lynch and Satan. 

His mystification lasted but for a moment, 
when his father’s voice, exclaiming: “So, 
Mooley. Whist ! be aisy now. What ails the 
baste ? ” and a well-known low, explained it 
all. His father had only pretended to sell 
the little Kerry cow, and had hidden her 
away here to keep her from the landlord’s 
clutches. At first, Paddy could hardly for- 
bear laughing aloud and shouting: “ There’s 
two of us, feyther. Faix, we’re in the same 
box!” 








IN HIDING 


85 


But it occurred to him in good time that 
while his father was hiding the cow from the 
landlord, he, Paddy, was attempting to hide 
the pig from his father. He therefore pru- 
dently retired into the thicket with Finn ma 
Cool, taking his jacket off and fitting its one 
sleeve closely over his pet’s snout to keep him 
from grunting. He waited until he saw his 
father’s lantern twinkling down the steep 
path, and then he entered the cabin, glad at 
heart for several reasons: First, his father 
had not stolen the milk which they had 
every morning for breakfast; second, dear 
old Mooley had not been sold; and third, 
which was no small consideration after their 
insufficient supper, he could now refresh 
himself and the pig with a drink of milk, 
which he did by milking a fine stream 
into his own mouth and then into Finn ma 
Cool’s. 

But it would not do to hide his pig here. 
He dared not leave him even for the night, 
for there was no telling when his father might 
return. The only other hiding-place which 
he could think of was Muchross Abbey. It 


86 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


was a long way to this beautiful ruin around 
the lake, but Paddy had no sense of weariness, 
now his heart was so light, and he trudged 
bravely on, repeating to himself an odd para- 
phrase of the ballad which Kathleen Desmond 
had sung for him : 

“ Finn ma Cool, I feel not the laste alarrum ; 

No son of Erin will offer us harrum. 

For though they love pork and bacon galore — 
Whist, Finn ! they love hanner and vartue more.” 

Although Muchross Abbey is situated in 
the middle of a burial-ground, and contains 
many tombs, Paddy was not afraid to venture 
there — in the first place, because the people 
there were so very dead that it was hardly 
conceivable that their ghosts could walk. 
No one had been buried there within the 
recollection of any living man. No one lived 
who felt any grief for, or had even known, 
the occupants of those tombs. It was a show 
place and resort for tourists, even at this 
time, though they came less frequently then 
than at the present day. 

It was a favourite spot of Kathleen’s, and 
Paddy had often been there with her. She 


IN HIDING 


87 


had shown him the tablet to the memory of 
her great-great-grandmother, Geraldine Des- 
mond. It was a strange bit of vanity, flaunt- 
ing as it did the paltry honours of this life at 
the door of death, but Paddy was too simple- 
minded to notice any incongruity and always 
read it with great respect. 

This was what the tablet said : 

“ A memorial of the trulie vertuous and religious Geraldine 
Desmond late of Killamey, lineally descended on her father’s 
side from the anncient and worshipfull family of MacCarthy 
More of Kerry & on her mothers from the ONeils of Ul- 
ster. This Geraldine was the wife of Hugh Desmond who 
was cozin thrice removed of that Earl of Desmond who was 
basely betrayed & slain his head sent to London, and his 
estates confiscated, but this Hugh being Secretary to the 
Lord Deputy managed better with both his head and his 
estates, & laid the former to rest in peace under the next 
tomb and left the latter to his lodge, whose fervent zeale to 
the Gospel her pietie, sanctitie and charitie, both the church 
which she endowed, and the poor whom she maintained, can 
sufficiently testifie. Aged upon LXXX years she died. 

“ No better thought than think on God 
And daily him to serve 
No better gift than to the poor 
Who ready are to sterve.” 

Paddy led his charge through the beautiful 
ruined abbey church. The moonlight shone 
through the shattered Gothic arches and the 


88 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


night wind gently moved the trailing ivy„ 
This jewel-box, among abbeys, is beautiful 
in the sunshine, but — 

“ When the broken arches are black in night, 

And each shafted oriel glimmers white ; 

When the cold light’s uncertain shower 
Streams on the ruined central tower ; 

When buttress and buttress alternately 
Seem framed of ebon and ivory ; 

Then home returning soothly swear 
Was never scene so sad and fair.” 

From the church Paddy passed to the 
cloisters around the yew tree, old even then, 
and mounted a narrow, winding stair to the 
abbot’s room. The roof was open to the 
sky, but there was an odd little niche in one 
corner which might once have been a shrine 
or a secret closet where the abbey silver was 
kept. Paddy had filled his arms with straw 
as he passed a farmer’s rick, and in the niche 
in the abbot’s room Paddy made the pig a 
comfortable bed. Finn was not inclined to 
stay in it, so Paddy descended again to the 
church, and bringing up a small tombstone 
barred his friend in. Finn thrust his nose 
through the aperture between the tombstone 


IN HIDING 


89 


and the lintel and squealed with indignation 
as Paddy left him, but the boy bade him not 
to make a “ screech owl” of himself and 
hurried away. 

It was almost morning when Paddy reached 
home, and it seemed to him that he had not 
fallen asleep before he heard his mother 
calling : 

“Get up, Paddy, Finn ma Cool has run 
away, or else the darlint’s been stolen.” 

“ Run away ! And how could the crayther 
do that, when I barred him in with a tomb- 
stone?” Paddy asked, sleepily. 

“With a tombstone! Sure, it’s dreaming 
you are. Come down to your breakfast, and 
then hunt him up, that’s a darlint.” 

Paddy came down and surprised his mother 
by drinking a large portion of the milk which 
he had lately seemed to dislike. After break- 
fast he carried a bowlful of the milk away 
with him, saying that he would tote Finn 
home with it ; but it is needless to say that 
he came back without the pig. He found 
the family in tears, for the landlord had just 
carried away the donkey. 


90 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


“Sure, the crayther’s no good, now that 
we can’t take him to the forest to carry the 
fagots home,” said Paddy. 

“Ow,” wailed Paddy’s mother, “if him- 
sel’ were only at the Hall he would not have 
his own people treated so, but we’ve no one 
to send to Lunnon to tell Squire Desmond 
how we’re mistreated.” 

Paddy mused sadly. It was long past the 
time that Kathleen Desmond had promised 
to return. Would he be able to keep Finn 
ma Cool until her return? Would she ever 
come? He determined to ask that afternoon 
at the Hall when the family were expected. 
But here again he received no comfort. The 
housekeeper told him that the present land- 
lord had leased the estate for seven years, 
but she gave Paddy Miss Kathleen’s address, 
a convent in France. No one at home could 
write a letter, and the only person whom 
Paddy knew who possessed skill enough to 
do it was Father Nooney, with whom he was 
not now on good terms. That very after- 
noon while Paddy was at the Hall a further 
cause of estrangement had arisen. 


IN HIDING 


91 


A superstitious woman Jiad visited Father 
Nooney and had informed him that she had 
heard a ghostly priest chanting a midnight 
mass in Muchross Abbey. 

Under seal of confession the woman fur- 
ther divulged that, driven by extreme pov- 
erty, she had gone to the abbey at night for 
the purpose of prying some of the brazen 
tablets from the walls and selling them for 
old brass. 

While engaged in this wrongful deed the 
blows of her hammer woke dreadful echoes 
through the ruined abbey, and not echoes 
alone, for presently she heard the sound of 
chanting, as though the dead-and-gone monks 
were on their way from the cloisters to their 
seats in the choir. She fled panic-stricken, 
but returned after a time, and on seeing the 
spot still deserted, concluded that the sounds 
which she thought she had heard were only 
the imaginings of a guilty conscience; but at 
the very first blow they began again with 
redoubled vigour. 

The occasion was too suggestive to be 
neglected. Father Nooney enjoined on the 


92 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


woman, for the good of her own soul and 
the glory of the Church, to make public con- 
fession on the next Sunday, when he also 
announced that he would hold a “ station ” at 
Muchross Abbey on the following Friday, 
confessing all those in the parish who had 
like sins upon their minds, receiving their 
offerings and saying a mass for the rest of the 
troubled spirits in the cloister. 

Father Nooney, to tell the truth, did not 
believe in these spirits. He cared so little as 
to what it was which the woman had heard 
or thought she heard that he did not even 
visit the abbey to investigate before the 
day appointed for the station. If Paddy had 
attended church he would have^been warned, 
and would have removed Finn from his place 
of hiding ; but since the day that holy water 
had been administered boiling he had shunned 
the sanctuary. 

Mrs. O’Learey reported on her return from 
church that Father Nooney had announced 
that he would hold a “station,” but she 
neglected to mention the place appointed, and 
Paddy gave the matter no attention. 


IN HIDING 


93 


On Friday Father Nooney proceeded to the 
abbey a little ahead of time, accompanied by 
his catechumens, who were to act as choir- 
boys. They carried an altar-cloth, some can- 
dles and candlesticks, two china vases filled 
with dingy paper flowers, and a few other 
ecclesiastical furbishings, and with these he 
proceeded to improvise an altar from a 
large tomb. Then he gave his choir their 
places and explained to them their parts, not 
without some grumbling on their part, for 
Phelim Malloy, their very best singer, was 
absent. 

Now, Father Nooney had artfully told 
Phelim to hide at the other end of the cloister 
in the abbot’s room, and when he heard the 
singing in the chapel to roar out responses in 
his very loudest tones. 

Phelim was an orphan whom Father 
Nooney was educating for the priesthood, and 
the wily priest felt that he could rely upon 
his confederacy in the plot. But Father 
Nooney had not reckoned on any real pres- 
ence in the haunted chamber, and hardly had 
the chanting begun when Phelim, with terror 


94 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


staring from his countenance, rushed into 
the chapel exclaiming : “A ghost ! a ghost ! 
There is a ghost in the abbot’s chamber.” 
The congregation sprang to their feet, and 
although it was broad daylight, the greater 
part tumbled over each other in their haste 
to leave the abbey. But there were others 
braver or more incredulous than the rest who 
remained and surrounded Father Nooney 
while he questioned the trembling boy. 

“ Faith, I wint up to the abbot’s chamber, 
as you tould me, sor ” 

44 Whist, Phelim, make no circumlocutions 
from the truth. Bein’ naturally of a pryin’ 
disposition, yees was explorin’ and spyin* 
about this religious house, when yees chanced 
into the abbot’s chamber, and what happened 
thin?” 

“Why, I stood by the windy, sor, that 
looks down on the cloister, and when the 
boys began to sing, I begins, just as you tould 
me, sor, whin from a sort of cupboard in the 
wall there came sich cries and groans as would 
have broken the courage of a gauger, sor.” 

4 4 And yeez turned tail and run simply 


IN HIDING 


95 


from the wind a-blowin’ down a chimbly, ye 
cowardly spalpeen ” 

‘ ‘ Save your riverence, I did nothing of the 
kind, sor. I stood transfigured to the spot, 
with the eyes of me bustin’ out of me head; 
but they could see all the better for that. 
And through a big chink in the wall I sees a 
white face, with rid eyes gl’amin’ like to 
coals of fire, and thin I knew it was the ould 
boy himself, and I came straight to you, 

SOT. 

“ Belikes it’s some poor crayther that’s 
been walled up alive,” said one of the 
listeners. “Let’s go up and pull the wall 
down.” 

The timid runaways were now gaining 
confidence and returning, and Father Noo- 
ney, well pleased with the turn affairs were 
taking, made haste to take up a collection, 
and then marshalled his congregation in 
procession, while he took the head and led 
the way to lay the ghost. Not a sound was 
heard as they threaded the cloister except 
their own footfalls and excited breathing. 
The little staircase was tortuous and so nar- 


96 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


row that only one could mount it at a time, 
so that when Father Nooney entered the 
abbot’s chamber the rear of the procession 
had only just left the abbey chapel. The 
priest still believed that the noises heard by 
the woman and by Phelim were made by the 
wind or by rooks cawing in the chimney, and 
he entered the room, exclaiming boldly: 
“ Unhappy spirit or guilty demon, I com- 
mand you, in the name of all the saints, 
leave this holy house in peace.” 

He was positive that nothing would be 
discovered, and that his fame as an exorcist 
would spread far and near; but Phelim, em- 
boldened by the presence of the priest, and 
desirous of proving his assertions, crowded 
by Father Nooney, and seizing the tomb- 
stone, forcibly overturned it. 

It fell with a crash on the stone flagging 
and the liberated pig dashed jubilant from 
his imprisonment, overturning the priest, 
and scrambling down the staircase over the 
heads of the kneeling penitents and between 
the legs of the marching ones. Shrieks of 
fright were gradually merged into shouts of 


IN HIDING 


97 


laughter as the real character of the appari- 
tion was recognised. 

The younger men and boys set out in a 
wild chase through the abbey burying- 
ground after Finn, but he dodged and 
doubled and outran them with the wiliness 
and agility of a fox which has eluded the 
hunters for several seasons, and an hour later 
appeared at the O’Learey cottage squealing 
loudly for his supper. 

Father Nooney was now doubly an enemy. 
He felt that he had been made the laughing- 
stock of the parish, and he determined to 
wreak vengeance on Paddy and on his pig. 

He visited the family and upbraided them 
in such scorching terms that 
both Dennis and his wife with- / 

• i i 

ered before the fire of his r 
anger. Nothing would appease 
it but the surrender of the cul- 
prit, and threatened with excom- 
munication, Dennis tied a rope 'ffi 

f, - 

around the pig’s neck and // 
placed its end in the hand of 
the priest. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE FLIGHT. 



HEN Paddy learn- 
ed the events of 
the day he was 
filled with despair. 
His beloved Finn 
ma Cool in the 
possession of 
Father Nooney, perhaps already slaughtered 
for the priestly table ! 

“ May the sausages choke him ! ” Paddy ex- 
claimed, in his grief. ‘ ‘ May he never sup 
comfort from that meat. To think of his ile- 
gant little feet and ears made into souse for 
that ould hypocrite! I cannot endure it! I 
cannot endure it ! ” 

“ Sure, it’s meself is of the bye’s way of 
thinkin’,” said Dennis. “Whin I think of 
the salt-pork barrel empty in the cellar, and 
the ilegant bacon the crayther would have 


THE FLIGHT 


99 


made, not mentionin’ the two hams which 
we might have sold, and the chine and the 
spare ribs, and the sage hanging there over 
the chimney ready for the roast pork.” 

Mother Maloney groaned aloud, but Paddy 
burst into a louder wail. “ You’re all alike, 
you’re all ag’inst him, thirstifi’ for the blood 
of me darlint, and he’s not mine nuther; he’s 
Miss Kathleen’s. Ow ! yees had no right to 
gin him to Father Nooney.” 

Paddy’s mother was silent, but her sym- 
pathies were with her son. She lay awake 
long into the night, while her husband snored 
at her side, and when she heard the rafters 
creaking, and stealthy footsteps overhead, her 
mother’s heart divined that Paddy was pre- 
paring to rescue his pig. She stole from her 
bed and dressed herself as silently, and when 
Paddy slid down the sloping roof of the back 
shed and dropped to the ground he met his 
mother standing by the gate wrapped in a 
coarse frieze cloak.” 

“ Yees be goin’ for the pig ? ” she asked. 

“ Yes, mother, if it’s not too late.” 

“ But yees can’t kape it here. Father 


100 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


Nooney, let alone the agint, and the gardener 
at the great house, and your feyther, are all 
set on having the life of the crayther, and I 
misthrust hunger will drive even you to it, 
ma bouchal, before long.” 

“ Never, mother, and if I can’t be thrue to 
the thrust Miss Kathleen left me, why I’ll 
just be off with me and take the pig to her. 
Don’t hinder me mother; the crayther and I 
can perfarm on the way, and it’s good luck 
I’ll bring back with me when I come.” 

“It’s right you are, I’m thinking,” said 
Mrs. O’Learey ; “for sure there’ll no good luck 
find you here. Get the pig and I’ll meet you 
at the crossroads with a few little things and 
give you my blessing on your way.” 

To Paddy’s delight he found that Finn had 
not been butchered, but was confined in the 
priest’s kitchen. For Father Nooney, fearful 
of an attempt at rescue, had not dared to leave 
the animal in the sty outside the house. 

Paddy cautiously tried both door and win- 
dow and found them secure. But Father 
Nooney had not thought of the chimney, and 
for a boy of Paddy’s agility, it was an easy 


THE FLIGHT 


101 


matter to climb to the roof of the cabin and 
to let himself down the wide chimney by 
means of the clothes-line which he found in 
the back yard. The only trouble was that 
Finn, rejoiced at his approach, would not 
keep quiet, but greeted him with sqeals of 
delight, which awakened Father Nooney. 

When Paddy stood on the kitchen hearth, 
the priest sprang from his bed and scrambled 
for matches ; his delay in striking a light was 
Paddy’s salvation. He snatched up his pig, 
unbolted and flung open the kitchen door, 
and the strong draught extinguished the can- 
dle in the priest’s hand. Then it was ‘ ‘ legs do 
your duty” — and Paddy’s were younger and 
swifter than the portly priest’s. Long before 
he reached the crossroads, Father Nooney 
gave up the chase, and returned discomfited 
to his cabin. 

At the crossroads Mrs. O’Learey was wait- 
ing with a small bundle in which she had be- 
stowed all of Paddy’s belongings, a loaf of 
bread, and a silver half-crown. 

“ It’s to Cork you’ll be going,” she said, 
“ and it’s there you’ll be stayin’ till ye’ve a 


102 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


chance to cross over the channel. Now, Shan* 
don’s neighbourin’ to Cork, an’ we’ve friends 
there : the Callahans, and^Rose Callahan, she 
was to have married me brother Barney, and 
she was Miss Kathleen’s maid, and would 
have follyed her to furrin’ parts, only she 
promised Barney to wait for him. She’ll be 
good to you for the sake of him that’s gone.” 

Paddy’s mother trudged along by his side for 
a long way ; it seemed as if she could not bear 
to turn around and leave. At length, when 
the gray dawn appeared over Dunloe, she sat 
down on a grassy mound and took him in 
her arms and wept over him. Paddy had 
heard the women raise the keen over the 
dead at wakes, but he had never heard so 
heart-breaking a wail as this which his mother 
sobbed in his ear: “ O acushla machree 
(pulse of my heart), Pm tearing my heart out 
in giving you up. My eyes will wither with- 
out the sight of your sweet face. I’ll see you 
no more, no more, and I’ll die of the famine — 
the heart famine, I’m m’aning.” She was 
quite as likely to die of actual starvation, for 
her hands were very thin, and Paddy knew 


THE FLIGHT 


103 


that she had often pushed her porridge toward 
him, saying: “ I’m not hungry,” the sweetest 
lie that ever mother told. 

“Mother! mother!” Paddy cried, “you’ll 
break my heart with your keening. Sure, it’s 
yourself bid me go to seek my fortune, and 
maybe I’ll find the luck-penny that grand- 
mother’s always talking about. Sure, I look 
at ivery silver coin that folks gives me at fairs 
to see if it has the blessed cross on it, and 
when I finds it I’ll bring it back to you and 
we’ll never sup sorrow no more.” 

Mrs. O’Learey straightened herself up with 
a brave, proud smile which was pitiful to see, 
and blessed her boy with the most powerful 
blessing which she knew, a strange, super- 
stitious rigamarole, the enlightened will call 
it ; but as Paddy saw the steadfast faith shin- 
ing through his mother’s tears, and heard 
pronounced so solemnly the mystic blessing, 
“ Christ’s saints stand betwixt you and 
harm — Mary and her Son, St. Patrick and 
his staff, Martin with his mantle, Bridget 
with her veil, Michael with his shield, and 
God over all with his strong right hand ” — 


104 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


he felt himself guarded by an invisible com- 
pany of angels. Mrs. O’Learey, strengthened 
and comforted, pulling her cloak about her 
face, turned and ran toward Killarney. 

Paddy looked after her mournfully but 
bravely. It was the last turn in the road 
from which he could see the beautiful lakes, 
and memories of the lovely region in which 
he had lived all his life almost overcame his 
courage. There was sweet Innisfallen, with 
its ruined abbey and oratory; one of the old- 
est in Ireland, where St. Patrick himself 
had lived. There was the Stone Garden, 
a formation of strangely shaped stones, the 
only garden, as his grandmother often said, 
“ that never failed in all the failures of Ire- 
land, but grew spontaneous from year to 
year.” There was O’Donoghue’s Library, 
where the broken strata resembled books, 
and the meeting of the waters under the old 
Weir Bridge, built centuries before by the 
Danes, surely the loveliest spot in lovely 
Killarney. There was, too, the Long Range, 
where he had watched the deer, and the 
eagle’s nest on the cliff, and all the rough 


THE FLIGHT 


105 


wild region about the Upper Lake, McGilli- 
cuddy’s Reeks, and the Gap of Dunloe. 
How could he leave it all? The pig seemed 
to be of the same mind, and turning, started 
at a gallop for Killarney. This woke Paddy 
from his dreams, and speedily surrounding 
Finn, he trudged manfully on his way. 

Paddy’s hopes of making his fortune was 
not, however, immediately realised. He 
found the country in great distress; there 
were no fairs and few markets, and he could 
hear of no weddings or merry-makings. He 
gave performances with his pig at every vil- 
lage, but though there were plenty of idle 
people who collected about him, very few 
gave him anything, and when he begged for 
his supper at night he was frequently turned 
away hungry. He slept in barns and behind 
haymows, and ate raw vegetables and crusts, 
becoming hardly more fastidious than his 
pig- 

At Roikeen he heard of a market in Tip- 
perary, and hoping to make a little money he 
turned toward the north instead of pursuing 
the direct road to Cork. But the market was 


106 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


a very disappointing affair. It swarmed 
with beggars and thieves, and though many 
had come to sell, there were few to buy, and 
fewer who cared to spend the little money 
they possessed in looking at shows. It was 
at this market that Paddy nearly lost his pig 
and Finn his life ; for as it broke up a party 
of famished tramps gave chase to them both, 
declaring that they would have a barbecue 
before they died, and roast the performing 
pig. They chased them for several miles, 
famine and hope giving speed to their legs, 
while fear quickened those of Paddy and 
Finn. 

At the foot of the Rock of Cashel, Paddy’s 
strength gave out, and he sank down ex- 
hausted before the rocky road which led to 
the summit, where he had hoped to find an 
asylum in the ruined monastry. He tried to 
drive Finn up the cliff, but the stubborn ani- 
mal remained by his side. Panting, but 
not quite exhausted, the tramps came lum- 
bering up the road like a pack of hounds after 
their prey. Paddy gave up all for lost, when 
a man dressed in a long gray gown of frieze 


THE FLIGHT 


107 


stepped down the natural staircase and con- 
fronted the gang. They stopped, frightened 
by his sudden appearance, and one of them 
muttered, “ It’s the ghost that ates the nuts.” 

“ By the same token! ” exclaimed the man 
in gray; “and why haven’t you brought me 
any this long time? ” 

“ Plaze your haner’s haner,” said the fore- 
most man humbly, “we haven’t any our- 
selves ; but if ye’ll be plazed to share the pig 
with us, ye’ll be welcome to the best 
pickings. ” 

“ Small thanks to you,” replied the 
strange man, “ when the crayther’s my own, 
by this sign,” and standing in front of Finn, 
he solemnly winked three times. 

“He’s winked at the pig!” screamed the 
ringleader of the tramps. “ Begob, he’s 
winked at the pig, an’ it’s no eating now for 
any Christian man. Be he divil, or ghost, 
or man it makes no differ, the pig’s winked 
at, and his flesh’ll pizen any mortial.” 

A loud grumbling was heard from the 
gang, who turned reluctantly away. One 
sturdy fellow lingered. “Sure, it’s meself 


108 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


wouldn’t be afraid to try,” he said; “ I’d as 
lief die of pizen as hunger.” 

“Sure, you don’t know what you’re 
talkin’,” called one of his companions. 
“Your car kiss would swell bigger than a 
hippypotamus, and yer sowl would niver find 
its way to Paradise. It’s under inchantment 
it is; come away before he puts the evil eye 
on you too, you ignyramus.” 

Paddy had somewhat regained his breath 
during this parley, and he now begged for 
the life of his darling. 

“Come up to the top of the rock,” said 
the man in gray, “and we’ll see him per- 
farm. Sure, it’s little divarshun I’ve had 
this many a day, and laughing’s as necessary 
to a man’s life as ’atin’.” 

The Rock of Cashel is crowned by the 
ruins of an old abbey; a graveyard surrounds 
it, still used for interment; but no one in- 
habits the ruinous pile, and only occasional 
burial processions, pilgrims on penance, or 
tourists visit the spot. Paddy’s only ideas of a 
ruined abbey had been gained from Muchross, 
that little jewel-box among ruins; and he 


THE FLIGHT 


109 


was smitten with a feeling of awe as he 
viewed the great cathedral of Cashel, the 
palace of the Munster kings, Hore Abbey, 
the stone-roofed chapel built by Cormac 
MacCarthy in 1127, and the great round 
tower ninety feet high and fifty-six feet 
around. 

“ Sure, is it the king of this place ye are ? ” 
he asked of his guide as he led the way into 
Cormac’s Chapel; ‘‘and are yees alive or 
dead ? ” 

“ They say I’m the ghost of Cashel,” re- 
plied the unknown, and I’ll not be denijin’ 
them, for in the first place its unmannerly to 
conthradict, and in the second place, it suits 
me purpose well. For since I’ve took up 
with these quarters and show myself occa- 
sionally in the avenin’, there’s always some 
one will bring me the bit sup, cornin’ at noon 
of the day and lavin’ it on one of the tomb- 
stones. Thrue for you, there’s a bit of same- 
ness in the diet, bein’ principally nuts, but it’s 
not for me to object, as that would be giving 
the lie to the lagind intirely. So I has chest- 
nuts and acorns for breakfast, and walnuts 


110 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


and acorns for dinner, and chestnuts and 
walnuts for supper. Help yourself and wel- 
come, and give some of the acorns to the 
pig-” 

Paddy did as he was bidden and then made 
Finn perform, and whether his host were man 
or spirit, he felt that he had never had a more 
appreciative or generous audience. 

“ Sure, the baste was worth winking at, and 
as long as the nut crop holds out, he’ll not 
go to bacon.” 

“ Will you tell me, plaze yer haner,” Paddy 
asked, * ‘ why the people give yees only nuts ? 
Is it because the trees are convanient ? ” 

“ Partually, but more on account of the 
lagind. Rest ye aisy and I’ll tell it to yees. 
The people of Cashel say that there was once 
an ould woman who was that sick with the par- 
alism that for seven years she hadn’t walked 
one step. Well, this ould woman had two 
sons, and one of them was that fond of nuts 
that he killed himself ’atin’ of them. There’s 
thim that do say that he died for love of a gurrl 
named Nora, but the most part hold that it’s 
much likelier the nuts killed him. Be that 


THE FLIGHT 


111 


as it may, when he lay a-dying he said to the 
priest : ‘ Do you think there’s any nuts in 
heaven ? * says he. 

“ And says the priest: 4 It may be so, but 
there are no nuts in Purgatory, and it’s to 
Purgatory you be goin’.’ 

“ i If that be so,’ says the young man to his 
mother, ‘ tell Nora to put a bag of nuts on my 
grave and I’ll come back. Such is the love I 
bears her.’ 

“ Some say it was for the love of Nora he’d 
come back, but I says it was for the love of 
the nuts, as my story will show. 

“ So those were the last words that iver he 
said, and they waked him, and they buried 
him there foreninst the round tower; and 
Nora she couldn’t deny him that thriflin’ 
satisfaction, and she put a bag of nuts on his 
grave all in the broad daylight, and went her 
ways, for she’d no hanker to meet him alive 
or dead. 

“ Now, there’s a sayquil to the story, and 
there’s two varsions to the sayquil, and the 
likeliest to my mind is this: There lived a 
poor man in the village of Cashel, and one 


112 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


night there came to his house a robber and 
asked could he shtay the night with him. 

You’re welcome,’ says the poor man; 
* but I’ve nothin’ to set before you, for I’ve 
nothin’ myself, ’ says he, ‘ and by the same 
token, my children are cryin’ with hunger.’ 

“Well, the monks lived here thin, and 
the robber said : ‘ Show me the way to the 
abbey shapefold and I’ll stale a shape for 
yees. ’ 

“ So the poor man took a lanthorn, and he 
says, * There’s the shapefold; but sure, I’ll not 
go wid yees ; I’ll just shtep into the graveyard 
and wait until yees come back.’ So in he 
shtepped and sot down on the young man’s 
grave, and finding the nuts convanient, began 
to crack ’em on his tombstone. 

“Well, just at that time who should come 
along but the young man’s brother, who was 
curious to see whether his brother’s ghost 
would really come back afther the nuts or 
the gurrl. And when he saw the poor man 
sitting there ’atm’ the nuts he was scared out 
of his wits. So home he runs to his mother. 
‘ And mother,’ says he, ‘I see my brother 


THE FLIGHT 


113 


a-sittin’ on his grave a-crackin* the nuts on 
his tombstone.’ 

i 1 * And what did he say to you ? ’ says she. 

“ * Niver a word,’ says he. 

“ ‘ Oh! take me to him,’ says the mother, 
* and I’ll queskin him,’ says she. 

“ So, as she was parylised, the son took the 
mother on his back and carried her to the 
burying-ground ; and when the poor man saw 
them coming he thought it was the robber 
with the shape, so he called out : ‘ Sure, it’s a 
fat one you have ; bring her along and we’ll 
ate her betwixt us.’ 

‘ £ ‘ Fat or lean there she is for you, ’ says 
the son, and he dumped his mother in a ditch 
that was convanient and run for his life. And 
the ould lady she was so scared too, that she 
forgot all about her paralism and up and ran 
too, and got home before her son, she that 
had not walked for seven years. 

“Now, that’s one sayquil, and a sinsible 
one ; but there’s others that say that the son 
brought his mother by night with the nuts, 
and that the spirit of her son that was dead 
appeared to her and wrought a miracle and 


114 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


cured her, and after that Nora repinted her 
onkindness and came frequent and walked up 
and down the aisles a-convarsin’ with the 
spirit of the mighty dead. 

4 ‘And whichever way the truth may lie, 
the conclusion is the same. The poor peo- 
ple of Cashel, whether they have parylised 
relations at home or sweethearts that’s 
givin’ to jiltin’, all the same they brings nuts 
and lays them on my tombstone, for I’m the 
ghost of the young man. Don’t yees be 
laughin’.” 

With this remarkable statement, he winked 
again in the same sly way that he had done 
at the pig, but Paddy did not have the least 
fear of the evil eye. Instead he was very 
sure that his host was a kindly disposed hu- 
man being, who for some reason best known 
to himself was hiding in the ruin. 

“ That’s a good story,” Paddy replied medi- 
tatively. “ It’s almost as good as the stories 
my grandmother used to tell, and I misdoubt 
it’s as thrue as some of them. There may be 
ghosts as well as fairies, and it’s not for me to 
be doubting the good people. Sure, we’re most 


THE FLIGHT 


115 


of fairy stock ourselves, and that’s the way 
we come to have a luck penny.” 

“A luck penny!” exclaimed the man in 
gray ; “ there’s only a few old families in 
Ireland has that. We had one onst, but 
’twas lost, bad cess to the fairies that shtole it 
from us.” 

“But the fairy who gave us ours was a 
Leprechawn, good-natured to us, for the good 
turn my great-great-great, seventy times 
great, grandmother did him. and he didn't 
stale it from us at all, at all; but we must" 
have lost it oursel’.’’ 

“ Tell me the lagind, little one,” said the 
man in gray; “I like laginds, and this one 
sounds familiar like.” And while the man 
in gray lighted his dudeen and smoked com- 
placently, and Finn, who had not had such a 
royal feast of acorns for many a day, curled 
up by Paddy’s side and grunted contentedly 
in his sleep, Paddy told the story of the 
blessed luck penny. 

“ Ages and ages ago, before there were any 
lakes in Killarney, and only a little throut 
strame that came Taping and dancing down 


116 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


from the hills, the castle of Prince O’Dono- 
hue stood on its banks in the midst of a plain, 
where the Upper Lough is now. 

“ Now, the prince was an ould bachelor, and 
he played havoc with the gurrls’ hearts in- 
tirely, and not with mortial girls alone, for 
the quane of the fairies was in love with him, 
and he with her, and the day was set for their 
marriage. 

“ Now, there was an ould bachelor Lepre- 
chawn — that’s a fairy, too, but not the hand- 
some kind. Some folks calls ’em brownies and 
some bogies. They have round little stumicks 
and thin arms and legs; and this one wore a 
long-tailed red coat and grane knee-breeches, 
and' a black hat cocked over one ear, and a 
big ruff of fine lace, like as I’ve seen in the 
portraits at the Hall, gathered around his 
wrinkled ould face. Sure, he was the gintle- 
man intirely, but not inticein’ to look at. 
Well, he loved the fairy quane and she would 
have none of him. So, in revinge he went to 
the purtiest gurrl in Killarney, and says he : 
* If you will bewitch the O’Donohue so that 
he will forsake his fairy bride, I will give you a 


THE FLIGHT 


117 


magic purse containing the silver luck penny 
that St. Patrick blessed, so that as long as 
that penny is kept in that purse it is never 
alone, for if the last shillin’ is spint another 
comes to kape company with the luck penny.’ 

“Now, the gurrl’s name was Ellen, and 
she was not only the purtiest girl in Killar- 
ney, but the purtiest in all Ireland as well, 
and when the O’ Donohue saw her, be- 
witched he was — for no Irishman could 
stand bewitchment like that — and to that ex- 
tint that he forgot the fairy quane intirely 
and asked her to marry him. 

“ But the night of the wedding, when the 
dancing and che feasting were going on in the 
castle, the fairy quane called all her subjects 
together and they built a wall where the val- 
ley narrows, just where the old Weir Bridge 
is now, and they dammed up the strame, and 
the waters riz and riz till they come into the 
hall of the castle, and the guests flew about 
all shrieking with terror. Thin the Lepre- 
chawn flew in on the wings of a bat and carried 
the bride away to a safe place, but the in- 
chantments of the fairy quane were too much 


118 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


for him and he couldn’t save the O’Donohue, 
who was drowned under the waters or else 
changed into a merman by the fairy quane. 
I’ve been over the spot where the castle is, in 
a boat, and my feyther says he can make out 
the battlements with the flag flying, but I 
never could quite see it. 

“ Howsomever the Leprechawn kept his 
promise and gave Ellen the luck penny, and 
if her beauty brought her suitors before, you 
may be sure her wealth didn’t keep them 
away, and so at last she married an honest 
chap, my siventy-siven times great grand- 
father, Barney Maloney.” 

“ Tare an’ hounds! ” exclaimed the man in 
gray. “ By this and that, it’s my own name 
you’re afther sp’akin’, and since I can’t be 
that Barney Maloney, sure, I must be one of 
his own sisters cornin’ afther him. I’ve 
heard my mother tell that story many a time 
when I was a bye in Castleisland, and what’s 
more, she would have it that I lost the luck 
penny the night the middleman was shot. 
The saints stand bechuxt us and harm. I’ve 
no remimberance of iver having had it.” 


THE FLIGHT 


119 


“ Then you are him that’s gone,” Paddy 
said, meditatively, “and not a ghost at all, 
at all.” 

“ Is that what they are after calling me? ” 
asked Barney; “ and by the same token, you 
must be one of my sister O’Learey’s childer 
from Killarney. And how are they all this 
many year? And my mother, is she still in 
Castleisland ? — tell me that.” 

Paddy gave his uncle all the family news. 
“ And since it’s my own flesh and blood ye 
are, yees shall fare on somethin’ better nor 
nuts,” he said, and removing a slab from 
the stone pavement, he lifted a basket from 
the hollow beneath — a basket filled with cold 
meat and bread, and Paddy feasted as he 
had not done since the beginning of the 
famine. 

He remained for some time with his uncle, 
or rather made the Rock of Cashel the 
centre of his peregrinations in Tipperary, 
strolling about for days at a time with his 
pig and returning at intervals to Cormac’s 
Chapel, sure of a kindly welcome. 

Barney, too, made excursions in the neigh- 


120 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


bourhood of a very mysterious character. 
Paddy feared that his trade was not an 
honest one, for he was often absent at night ; 
and once when he returned late, and fancied 
that Paddy was sleeping, he took from his 
person a heavy belt and counted so many 
bright gold pieces that Paddy pinched him- 
self to make sure he was not dreaming. 
“Sure, it’s the king of the robbers he is,” 
thought Paddy, and his mind was torn with 
the desire to have his uncle relieve the dis- 
tress of the family at Killarney, and his con- 
scientious scruples as to whether it would be 
right for them to accept ill-gotten gains. 

One night Barney returned utterly dis- 
couraged. Paddy had seen him strangely 
excited before, but never with such an ut- 
terly heart-broken expression as that which 
he wore as he sorrowfully bade his nephew 
farewell. 

“I’m Pavin’ you, little one,” he said, “it’s 
to Cork I’m goin’, for the game’s up and Tip- 
perary’s no good for me.” 

“ No more it is for me,” Paddy replied. 
“ It was to Cork I set out to go at first, and 


THE FLIGHT 


121 


wid your consint it’s to Cork I’ll be afther 
thravellin’ wid yees now; unless it’s a slight 
detour ye’ll be afther makin’ and see me 
mother an’ grandmother in Killarney. Be the 
powers, I can’t take Finn back there ayther, 
for all the winkin’ of yer eyes’ll not save him 
from Father Nooney; he’s such a powerful 
exorcist he’d just take the inchantment off 
wid a dash of b’ilin’ howly wather, and have 
Finn sarved up for supper in the wag of a 
black shape’s tail. No, I must deliver him 
safe to Miss Kathleen and thin I’ll go back to 
Killarney wid yez.” 

“ And where is Miss Kathleen? — the saints 
save her leddyship! ” asked Barney. “ It’s in 
furrin parts I heard she’d gone.” 

“ Sorra a wan of me knows,” replied Paddy, 
“ for I lost the paper that had the address on 
it; but it’s Rose Callahan that will know, and 
it’s to her I’m goin’ with your permission and 
that of the pig.” 

“ Rose Callahan ! ” shouted Barney ; “ sure, 
yees don’t tell me she’s in Ireland. I heard 
she’d left Killarney wid the family.” 

“ Thrue for you, but she wint wid thim no 


122 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


further than Shandon, and that’s Cork, and 
there she’s awaitin’, so my mother says, for 
the return of him that’s gone.” 

“ Tare an’ hounds! ” shouted Barney; ft it’s 
to Cork we’ll be goin’, and we’ll not be walkin’ 
nayther. It’s meself will invest in a donkey 
and a cart, and we’ll ride along like lards, 
wid a horse and six coaches, the pig for our 
futman; and blessings on yees, Paddy, ye 
rascal, why didn’t ye tell me this before? ” 



CHAPTER VI. 


BLARNEY CASTLE AND FATHER MATHEW. 


LTHOUGH Barney 
seemed in such haste 
to reach Cork, that he 
went to the expense of 
purchasing a donkey 
and cart with which to 
make the journey, and 
would not brook the 
delay necessary to give 
any performances with 
the pig upon the way, he wasted several 
hours rather than enter the city by day- 
light, but turned off from the road and 
reached the ruins of Blarney Castle in the 
evening. 

“ It’s here we’ll make our risidence,” he 
said to Paddy, ‘ ‘ as f oine as if we were di- 
scindants of the MacCarthy More. We’ll hide 
the cart in the thicket yonder, and 



123 


124 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


“ ‘ I know a cave where 
No daylight enters, 

But bats and badgers 
Are forever bred, 

And moss by nature 
Makes it complater 
Than a coach-and-six 
Or a downy bed.’ 

“ Sure, it’s there we’ll introjuice the don- 
key, and many a better crayther has had a 
worse lodging-place.” 

Paddy helped his uncle to unharness the 
donkey and put him into the cave, the en- 
trance to which was so cunningly hidden that it 
was evident the locality was well known to 
Barney. 

“ Did yees make up that poetry yersel’ ?” 
Paddy asked in admiration. 

“No, Paddy, but it’s none the worse for 
that. Look about yees ma bouchal, did yees 
ever see a lovelier place in the moonlight ? 
and its purtier still in the sunshine. 


“ ‘ The groves of Blarney, 

That look so charming 
Down by the purlings 
Of sweet quiet brooks, 

Are decked by posies 
That spontaneous grow there, 
Planted in order 
In the rocky nooks.’ ” 


BLARNEY CASTLE 


125 


Paddy gazed on the beautiful and peaceful 
scene with delight and then looked wonder- 
ingly up at the rugged tower of the great don- 
jon keep, which towered above them in gloomy 
grandeur. 

“ And is it there we’re to lodge the night ? ” 
he asked. “ Sure, I think a barn would be 
cheerfuller. Are yees sure there’s no robbers 
or evil folk up there ? It’s a mighty dismal- 
looking tavern, and I’d rather make its ac- 
quaintance in daylight.” 

“ Right ye are,” Barney replied, 1 ‘for the 
staircase is full of twistifications, and some 
of the stones are missing. We’ll just delay 
a thorough exploration of the place till 
mornin’, but in the manetime, I knows a 
cozy little room, here at the foot of the 
tower, that they used to shtarve prisoners in 
when Cromwell, the villain, was belabouring 
the fortress. Some of the shtones have fal- 
len out quite convanient, and we can climb 
in. Hand me the pig, but tie my necker- 
cher around his nose first to silence his squ’al- 
ing, or he’ll disthurb all the jackdaws that 
are roostin’ in the circumjacent trees.” 


126 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


Paddy did as he was told, and by clinging 
to the great twisted stems of ivy, clambered 
after his uncle. He found himself in a small 
chamber, which had apparently no connec- 
tion with the interior of the castle, as the 
window through which they had made an 
entrance seemed the only opening in the 
solid stone wall, and it had evidently been 
enlarged from a mere loophole in compara- 
tively modern times. 

“Well, of all the quare rooms,” said 
Paddy, “ that I ever sh truck, this is the 
quarest. And how did the McCarthys ever 
get into it, at all? ” 

“ Sure, none of the family iver lodged 
here,” Barney replied; “didn’t I tell you it 
was for the prisoners? ” 

“But they couldn’t have boosted the 
prisoners from the outside through that hole 
in the wall,” Paddy objected, “for it was 
only a slit of a windy once, and here are 
shtaples of an iron grating.” 

“No, begob, they didn’t come in that 
way, nor did they grow spontaneous; but 
the floor was thick with the bones of thim 


BLARNEY CASTLE 


127 


whin the county perliss broke open the 
windy with pickaxes. Look aloft, will yees, 
and then maybe it mayn’t be above the 
measure of your understanding to guess how 
they descinded.” 

Paddy looked up and shuddered, for the 
room had apparently no ceiling between it 
and the roof of the tower, which, a hundred 
feet above them, let the moonbeams through 
its broken rafters. Half way up the wall, 
however, he could discover a door, and the 
idea occurrred to him that a staircase might 
have formerly existed, communicating with 
different floors of the tower which had been 
burned or had otherwise disappeared. 

“No,” said Barney, in reply to this sug- 
gestion, “ there niver wor no floors intervan- 
ing nor no shtaircase, but the prisoners were 
just pushed out of that door to tumble down 
and break their bones on these stones, and 
this windy was left convanient that their 
groans and shrieks might be heard by their 
friends who were besieging the castle, and 
whin the besiegers came near wid their bat- 
tering-rams an’ their culverins, faith, molten 


128 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


lead was poured on them from a swingin’ 
crate, the ingeniousness of which I’ll ex- 
plain to you in the morning. An’ those 
were the gay boys intirely, the MacCarthy 
Mores.” 

Paddy lay down with Finn for a pillow and 
his uncle’s frieze coat for a coverlet, but his 
strange surroundings and the gruesome tradi- 
tions kept him for a long time awake. 

When morning came they brought some 
water from the brook and made a frugal 
breakfast on some food which they had 
brought with them, after which Barney told 
Paddy to go to Shandon with his pig and 
look up Rose Callahan; “for,” said he, “I 
wouldn’t be surprisin’ the darlint so suddint 
like. Get her ear alone and ask her if I may 
come this avenin’ . But what am I thinkin’ of. 
Come up with me and kiss the Blarney Shtone 
that the darlint will not be able to resist 
yees.” 

“What do yees mane, uncle?” Paddy 
asked, for he had never heard the local 
legend. 

“ Sure, there’s the poem ag’in for you,” 


BLARNEY CASTLE 


129 


said Barney, quoting once more from Dick 
Milliken’s song: 

“ ‘ There is a stone 
That whoever kisses, 

Oh ! he never misses 
To grow eloquent. 

’Tis he may clamber 
To a lady’s favour 
Or become a member 
Of Parliament ; 

A clever spouter 
He’ll sure turn out, or 
An out and outer, 

To be let alone. 

Don’t try to hinder him 
Or to bewilder him, 

For he’s a pilgrim 
From the Blarney Stone.’ ” 

Barney led Paddy to the roof of the castle 
and showed him the stone set in the outer 
wall below the parapet. “There’s no re- 
sistin’ any one that kisses that shtone,” said 
Barney; “and I’ll hold yees by the heels, 
head downward, over the side of the wall till 
yees does it.” 

It was a fearful experience, as with starting 
eyeballs Paddy hung in mid-air, and saw the 
tree-tops beneath him. Barney held him 
tightly, but, as it seemed to the boy, for an 


130 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


eternity; and when he jerked him up grazed 
his chin and forehead against the rough 
masonry. 

“ Have yees iver thried it yersel’? ” Paddy 
asked. 

“ Faith, no,” Barney replied, sadly; “for I 
know no one in this neighborhood would give 
me the kindness to swing me by the heels, 
though there’s many would do that same by 
my neck.” 

“Yees might go down overhand with a 
good stout rope,” suggested Paddy. 

Barney shook his head. “ Give me but a 
chance with Rose Callahan and I’ll not be 
needing any blarney but my own, I’m 
thinkin’,” he said with a confident smile. 
“You see, Paddy darlint, I’ve a charum 
that was given me by an ould witch woman, a 
charum of most desperate love. I’ve only to 
write it with a raven’s quill in the blood of 
the ring finger of my left hand, and then 
fasten the charum on to Rose Callahan unbe- 
knownst to her, and the colleen will not be 
able to live without me. So now I’m afther 
catching one of the burrds that’s cawing so 


BLARNEY CASTLE 


131 


lively in the tree yonder, and thin I’ll do my 
writing. Whist, Paddy, I’ll let yees read it, 
for maybe ye’ll have use for it yoursel’ one of 
these days.” 

The charm, written on very dirty paper, 
read as follows : 

“ By the power that Christ brought from 
Heaven mayst thou love me, woman! As 
the sun follows its course, mayst thou follow 
me. As light to the eye, as bread to the 
hungry, as joy to the heart, may thy presence 
be with me, O woman that I love, till death 
parts us asunder.” 

“ Be off wid yees,” said Barney, as Paddy 
handed him back the charm ; “ but before yees 
come back go to the post-office in Cork and 
mail this letter. It’s to America it goes, and 
ye must have it weighed and properly 
shtamped. Mind yees don’t tell livin’ mor- 
tial, except Rose, that Pm here, for it’s into 
prison I’d be clapped, and I’m not hanker- 
ing again for those quarthers. And bring 
back plenty of bread and mate with yees ; 
here’s money if ye can gain none with the 
baste, and by the same token, here’s my 


132 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


whiskey bottle, that’s as dry as me own 
throat.” 

Paddy hurried down the six flights of stairs 
and called Finn, who was squealing at the 
foot, much to the perplexity of the jackdaws, 
who were chattering with each other about 
him in angry altercation, some being plainly 
averse to his remaining longer in the vicinity. 
The docile creature trotted along by Paddy’s 
side as he took a short cut across the fields in 
the direction of Shandon, guided by the chimes 
of the famous Shandon bells. In after years 
Paddy learned to love Father Mahoney’s 
* ‘ Bells of Shandon:” 

With deep affection and recollection 
I often think of those Shandon bells, 

Whose sound so wild would, in days of childhood, 

Fling round my cradle their magic spells. 

On this I ponder, where’er I wander, 

And thus grow fonder, sweet Cork, of thee, 

With thy bells of Shandon, 

That sound so grand on 
The pleasant waters of the river Lee. 

Even now the melody of the chimes had a 
strange power over him, for it was the first 
time that he had heard cathedral bells. 

The breath of spring was in the air and 






BLARNEY CASTLE 


135 


energy in the rushing river, and he tramped 
on sturdily with a hopeful feeling at his heart 
which was quickened at Shandon, for he 
found sweet Rose Callahan, who was over- 
joyed when told that her old lover was near. 
Paddy had not the heart to tell her his sus- 
picions of why his uncle was in hiding, but 
Rose apparently understood it better than he, 
for she said : 1 1 Tell him to come to-night. 
There’s no one in the house but my old mother 
and me. We’ll keep him safe from thim 
that’s watching for him.” 

Even as she spoke a policeman turned the 
corner, and she retreated precipitately into 
her house, shutting Paddy out. The man 
eyed Paddy suspiciously, and the boy turned 
into the nearest public-house and asked per- 
mission to exhibit his pig, but there were only 
a few idlers standing about, and the landlord 
was surly. “ Get along wid yees,” he said. 
“ What with the famine and the temperance 
I’ve no custom, bad luck to Feyther Mathew 
and his medal.” 

The policeman was waiting at the door 
when Paddy came out, and the boy asked the 


136 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


nearest way to the Cork post-office, at the 
same time feeling in his pocket for a bit of 
twine with which to lead Finn, now that the 
streets were becoming more crowded. As 
he did so the letter which his uncle had given 
him fell out and the policeman picked it up. 
Paddy snatched it from him, but not before 
the man of law had read the address and 
asked in a startled way : 

“ Be the Powers, who gave you that letter? ” 
Paddy was too cute to answer his question, 
and, evading his outstretched hand, dashed 
around a corner without waiting to fasten 
Finn, who followed him at full gallop. When 
safely out of sight of the policeman he found 
the post-office and mailed the letter. But he 
had no further success that day. He had 
never seen such wretchedness in all his life as 
was visible in Cork. The distress had been 
sore in the country and in the villages through 
which he had passed, but here was a city of 
starving people. Men sitting in their door- 
ways with apathetic, despairing faces, or 
wandering up and down the streets crazed 
by hunger. Emaciated children wailed and 


BLARNEY CASTLE 


137 


begged, and wild, perishing women besought 
a little crust for the love of God. Suddenly 
a famishing dog spied Finn and rushed upon 
him ; Paddy fought him off and the pig ran 
madly down the street. A rabble of half- 
starving men and boys started from the dif- 
ferent doorways in pursuit, Paddy among 
them, though he saw that he could avail noth- 
ing against such a mob. Fortunately the pig 
kept on until it gained the suburbs of the 
town, and the men, weakened by fasting, 
gave up the chase ; but Paddy did not dare to 
return with his pet to the shops, and he kept 
on to Blarney Castle without the supplies 
which he had been told to secure. 

Barney was so delighted with the message 
from Rose Callahan that he attached little 
weight to Paddy’s other experiences, and 
fastening the pig in the donjon keep he sent 
the boy out again later in the day to make 
another attempt at marketing. 

As Paddy’s bad luck would have it, he had 
scarcely entered Cork when he met the same 
policeman whom he had encountered in the 
morning at Shandon. Hastily taking to his 


138 


PADDY O’LEARY 


heels, he ran into some of the very boys who 
had chased Finn in the forenoon. Instantly 
the cry was raised, “ The pig! ” for he was 
recognised as its owner, and a crowd larger 
than the first started in pursuit. 

Paddy was now at a disadvantage, for in 
the forenoon he had had the open before him 
and now he was hemmed in by the blind alleys 
and crooked streets of Cork, with which he was 
totally unfamiliar. The hue and cry started 
up new pursuers in front of him, who joined 
hands to head him off. Women threw mis- 
siles from windows and doorways, and as he 
had had no luncheon, he was not so fresh as 
in the morning. A broken bit of crockery, 
thrown by a boy, cut his forehead, and a power- 
ful hag rushed from a doorway flourishing a 
stocking containing a heavy stone. Paddy 
dodged her, doubled, and, blinded by the blood 
which trickled from his eyebrow, dashed reck- 
lessly toward the first unguarded opening, not 
noticing that it was a sheer declivity of some 
twenty feet. Over this he fell, his right leg 
doubling under him. He leaped up instantly, 
but sank back in a faint, for his leg was broken. 


BLARNEY CASTLE 


139 


Paddy did not know what followed. The 
policeman came to him by a circuitous way 
and stood scratching his head in perplexity. 
Now that his prey was in his power he did 
not know what to do with him. There was 
no provision in the city jail for broken legs. 
He searched the boy’s pockets, but the letter 
which he wished to secure was already on its 
way to America. The boy was not now in a 
state to answer questions, and the captor was 
completely nonplussed by his own success. 

While the mob was gazing stupidly a 
priest came forward, to whom the crowd 
opened respectfully. The priest knelt by 
Paddy’s side and at once saw the nature of his 
injuries. “ Help me to carry the lad into the 
friary,” he said to the policeman, who at 
once obeyed, and Paddy was laid on a clean 
white bed in the cell of Father Theobald 
Mathew, the great temperance reformer of 
Ireland. 

For days he was delirious, but Father Ma- 
thew cared for him faithfully and tenderly, 
gaining bits of the boy’s history from his in- 
coherent ravings. 


140 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


After Paddy came to himself, it was still 
several weeks before he could walk. Father 
Mathew came and went, and was always 
most kind and attentive, but Paddy was con- 
sumed with a wild desire to get to his uncle 
and his pig, and his impatience really hindered 
his recovery. Father Mathew knew of this 
desire from his delirious wailing, but even in 
the height of his delirium he had preserved 
the secret of his uncle’s name and where- 
abouts. 

“ If you will tell me where you live, my 
dear boy,” Father Mathew would say again 
and again, “ I will send a message to your 
friends, and they will doubtless come to you.” 

But Paddy closed his lips firmly, the hun- 
ger in his eyes alone telling what he suffered. 
He would not even send for Rose Callahan, 
for fear of bringing trouble upon her, or that 
the authorities might through her be able to 
track his hunted uncle. His experience with 
Father Nooney led him to distrust the priest- 
hood, and though Father Mathew’s face was so 
kind that he was often almost won, he would 
not yield to the impulse to confide in him. 


BLARNEY CASTLE 


141 


When his delirium was at its height, Paddy- 
had a strange dream, which he remembered 
distinctly afterward. It was that his Uncle 
Barney was dead, that he saw him wrapped in 
his shroud and lying upon his bier, with can- 
dles at his head and feet. But while he knelt 
in despair at his side the family good genius, 
the friendly Leprechawn, appeared and laid 
the lost luck penny upon his breast, and his 
uncle sprang to his feet alive and well. 
“ There you are,” said the Leprechawn, “for 
the love of a sweet Irish girl, a new many 
And with these words ringing in his ears the 
dream vanished. Father Mathew was talking 
earnestly near the door with a poor besotted 
wretch whom his weeping wife was beseech- 
ing to take the pledge. Paddy could see 
that the man was only half convinced, but 
Father Mathew seemed to possess a magic 
compelling power, for when he held out the 
pen toward him saying, “You will sign 
here,” the man obeyed mechanically and 
went away in a dazed condition, while his wife 
called down the blessings of Heaven on the 
priest. 


142 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


It was a very ordinary occurrence, and 
Paddy saw it enacted over and over again. 
Sometimes a man would be dragged in by 
his friends, resisting with all his might and 
swearing great oaths that nothing could com- 
pel him to take the pledge. Father Mathew 
would speak to him but a few moments in a 
calm but authoritative manner, and the man 
would fall upon his knees, all the revolt and 
ugliness gone out of him, and completely 
melted to repentance and submission. There 
seemed to be something almost miraculous 
in this man’s influence. He travelled from 
one end to the other of Ireland, administer- 
ing the pledge to thousands of persons and 
effecting so great a reform, that while in 
1839, the first year of his crusade, the number 
of persons committed for crimes was twelve 
thousand, in 1845 it was only seven thousand. 
He could not care for Paddy so long with- 
out speaking to him of the subject which 
was nearest his heart. 

“ I found a whiskey bottle in your pocket, 
my lad,” he said to him one day. “ I do not 
think it is your own, for you haven’t Satan’s 


BLARNEY CASTLE 


143 


mark on your face ; but if it belongs to your 
father, I want you to bring him to me. I 
have a message for him. He cannot be a 
true Irishman and love Ireland if he drinks 
now in the midst of this famine and suffer- 
ing. Why, Paddy, if all the grain that is 
converted into this poison were devoted to 
its natural use, it would afford a meal a 
day to every man, woman, and child in the 
land. The man or woman who drinks, drinks 
the food of the starving. Your father 
cannot be such a monster as to wish to do 
that.” 

“ The bottle isn’t me feyther’s,” Paddy re- 
plied. “ He drinks, though, but he never 
drank till he lost his luck. I wish yees 
could spake to him, for it’s breakin’ my poor 
mother’s heart he is ; but they are far away in 
Killarney.” 

“You must take the message to him your- 
self, my boy. When you are strong enough 
to travel I will send him a letter by you, and 
you must go back and help him.” 

Paddy was silent; he was not yet ready to 
tell Father Mathew his entire history, and 


144 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


the good priest, seeing that he had not quite 
won the boy’s heart, wisely desisted. 

One day he brought Paddy a crutch and 
helped him to limp about the friary court. 
“ My broken-winged sparrow is almost ready 
to fly,” he said kindly. t ‘If not back to 
Killarney, where do you want to go? Cork 
is no place for you. Have you possibly an 
uncle in America? ” 

At this chance question Paddy took instant 
alarm and determined to run away that very 
night from Father Mathew. 



N 




CHAPTER VII. 

THE FINDING OF THE LUCK PENNY. 

/\N the evening that Paddy 

w / met with his accident > 
1 ^ 7 H Barney found his way to 

Rose Callahan’s and met 
with so warm a welcome 
that it was nearly morn- 
ing before he found his 
way back to Blarney 
Castle. 

He was surprised to 
see that Paddy was not waiting for him, and 
his perplexity grew as several days passed by 
and the boy did not return. Had the pig 
also been missing, Barney would have con- 
cluded that Paddy had found an opportunity 
to cross the Channel ; but Barney knew that 
his nephew would not willingly go far with- 
out his darling Finn. For reasons of his 
own he could not prosecute an open search 
for Paddy, and he waited from day to day, 
hoping that he would return and explain the 



145 


146 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


mystery. He was quite willing to wait, for 
besides the proximity of Rose Callahan, which 
would have rendered any region delightful, 
it was quite necessary for Barney to receive 
an answer to the letter which he had de- 
spatched to America before he could deter- 
mine his future movements. 

Barney was not a robber, as Paddy had sus- 
pected, but the agent of a society of young 
Irishmen in America, who had entrusted him 
with funds to aid O’Connell in his political 
agitations. In his youth Barney had attended 
the monster meetings addressed by this great 
orator, and the memory of the eloquence of 
the “ Liberator ” had quickened his pulse and 
nerved his arm to labour while in exile in 
America. 

He had gathered about him there spirits 
like his own, who had followed from afar 
O’Connell’s battle for Catholic emancipation 
and for the repeal of the Union. They had 
flamed into revolt on his trial for “ seditious 
conspiracy,” and had laid aside their earnings 
to aid him on his release from prison. 

Barney was their agent, but on his return 


THE LUCK PENNY 


147 


to Ireland he found the political situation 
strangely changed. O’Connell’s health and 
spirit had been broken by his imprisonment. 
The Whigs had regained their power, and he 
consented to support their measures. The 
malcontents of Ireland reproached him bit- 
terly with having betrayed them. There 
were secret societies and incendiary meet- 
ings in Tipperary, and this explained Barney’s 
lurking at the Rock of Cashel. But Ireland 
was no longer united. The magician who 
had held their hearts and wills in his hand 
had lost his power. Barney heard him speak 
once, and wept at the change. Lord Lytton 
declared of O’Connell that he first learned 
from him 

“ What spells of infinite choice 
To rouse or lull has the sweet human voice.” 

Barney had seen him rouse to wildest en- 
thusiasm a vast open-air concourse — throwing 
his wonderful voice in its softest cadences 
across the hush to the remotest limit of the 
vast assemblage. Now they would not listen 
to him, but jeered and hissed when he rose, 
and, attempting to address them, broke down 


148 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


utterly. Barney sought him after the meet- 
ing and offered him the money sent by his 
American friends. But O’Connell refused to 
accept it. 

“ I see no way of using it for the good of 
Ireland,” he said. “ My heart is broken, and 
I am going to Rome to die. Stay, there is 
one man with whom you can trust it. Give 
it to Father Mathew; he will expend it in 
relief for the starving.” 

Barney came back to his hiding-place ut- 
terly disheartened. O’Connell had written a 
line for his friends in America, advising them 
to authorise Barney to give the funds to 
Father Mathew, and this letter Barney had 
enclosed in one of his own and was now 
awaiting its answer. 

He dared not show himself in public, for he 
had been imprisoned as a suspect on his first 
arrival in Cork, and since Paddy’s disappear- 
ance he depended on Rose Callahan to pur- 
chase the supplies necessary for himself, the 
donkey, and the pig. Rose, too, kept watch 
of the mails, and one day received the ex- 
pected letter from America. 


THE LUCK PENNY 


149 


But the police had been equally watchful, 
and on the night when Rose gave Barney the 
letter two policemen knocked at the home of 
the Callahans. 

The “ Widdy Callahan” and her daughter 
had always borne a good name in Shandon, 
and the policemen were not sure of the truth 
of their information. They therefore acted 
with great caution and politeness. 

‘ ‘ A strange man was seen to enter this 
house two avenin’s ago,” said Policeman Hur- 
ley, “ and he was not seen to depart. Can you 
explain me that?” 

The Widdy Callahan could have answered 
with perfect truth that he had gone away 
the same night, but the consciousness of guilt 
induces the person charged with it to take 
refuge in a lie rather than in the truth, and 
the Widdy Callahan replied recklessly : “ Sure, 
that was my third cousin, Donal* McGilli- 
cuddy, and how could he go out again when 
he was that sick he died this morning? ” 

“Died!” exclaimed Policeman Hurley. 
“ Then let us have a look at the corpse, and 
we’ll be after havin’ you.” 


150 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


“ I dunno that he’s ready for the wake,” 
replied the widow, elevating her voice so 
that it could be heard by the occupants of 
the next room. “Rose and I were laying 
him out as ye knocked at the door.” 

Rose and Barney had heard the conversa- 
tion. The room in which they were had 
only one window opening directly upon the 
street. People were passing, and seeing that 
there was no escape in this direction, they 
took the hint suggested by Mrs. Callahan, 
and Barney stretched himself on a couch and 
Rose covered him with a sheet. She was 
hastily placing lighted candles on a stool at 
his feet when Policeman Hurley opened the 
door. 

“Ow! Misther Hurley!” the ready-witted 
Rose exclaimed, “ don’t be afther crossin’ 
the doorsill and spoilin’ the pretty face of 
yees wid him dyin’ of the small-pox ! ” 

The policeman started back involuntarily. 
He had his suspicions, but the alternative 
was too terrible, and he rejoined his com- 
panion in the next room. “Have yees had 
the praste?” he asked of Mrs. Callahan. 


THE LUCK PENNY 


151 


“ Saints presarve ns, no. Won’t yees be 
getting one for us, Misther Hurley? ” 

“ That I will,” he replied, glad of an ex- 
cuse to leave the house. As the two men 
left the door, they stumbled against Paddy, 
who was carrying out his resolution to run 
away from Father Mathew. Hurley collared 
the boy, and then held a brief conference 
with the other policeman. “ It won’t do to 
go away at wanst, I’m thinkin’; we’d bet- 
ter watch the house a bit, for maybe it’s play- 
ing it on us they are.” 

“All the same, it’ll do no harum to send 
for the praste,” said the other. 

“If he’s a big felly, he may be too strong 
for one of us, and we’d better both stay here. 
Here, boy, go and get a praste; tell him 
there’s a man dead or dyin’, and he’s wanted 
immejiate.” 

“A man dead! ” Who could it be but his 
Uncle Barney, and Paddy limped away as fast 
as his crutch could carry him. He wakened 
Father Mathew, and the good priest willingly 
accompanied him. Grief had affected what 
nothing else could do, and had opened 


152 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


Paddy’s heart, and on the way he told Father 
Mathew everything — that the police were 
shadowing his uncle, for what reason he knew 
not, and that if he were not actually dead, a 
worse fate perhaps awaited him. 

The policemen stepped aside from the door 
as Father Mathew approached, but Hurley, 
touching his hat respectfully, communicated 
his doubts. 

“ I’m fearful,” he said, “ that the dead man 
isn’t dead at all, at all; but is one of O’Con- 
nell’s agints.” 

“ In that case why did you not arrest him? ” 
Father Mathew asked. 

“Well, your riverence, I was fearful again 
that he might be dead, and the saints would 
shtand betwuxt your riverence and harum; 
but they have more important business on 
hand than to be botherin’ about protectin’ 
the likes of us from small-pox.” 

“I see,” Father Mathew replied, with a 
slight touch of scorn in his tone. “ If it’s a 
case of too-exuberant patriotism, the case be- 
longs to you; if of death from a malignant 
disease, to me. Let me in, Mrs. Callahan, and 


THE LUCK PENNY 


153 


you, Paddy, remain in this outer room. I 
will return in a few moments.” 

Much against Mrs. Callahan’s will Father 
Mathew pushed his way into the inner room. 
Paddy could hear his low, serious voice for 
what seemed to him a long time, but he 
finally returned and said to Hurley: “The 
case belongs to me. Send Undertaker 
O’Malley here.” 

The policemen touched their hats and went 
away, and Paddy burst into a loud wail. 

Father Mathew laid his hand on the boy’s 
shoulder. ‘ ‘ I did not say that your uncle 
was dead,” he said reassuringly. “The liv- 
ing sometimes belong to me, and your uncle 
is going to Killarney immediately on my 
errands.” 

He opened the door as he spoke and 
Paddy rushed into the arms of his uncle. 
Father Mathew continued to converse with 
Barney. 

“I know O’Connell well,” he said. “A 
truer soul never breathed, and though he 
and his followers have made mistakes, they 
have acted in the main with praiseworthy 


154 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


moderation. I have helped him there, for if 
it were not for the temperate habits of the 
greater part of Ireland, our unhappy country 
would be one wild scene of tumult and blood- 
shed.” Father Mathew spoke the truth, for 
during his career upward of five millions out 
of a population of eight millions had signed 
the pledge. “ This money,” he went on, 
“ has been contributed by Killarney men and 
it must be expended for Killarney. Carry 
out my instructions exactly as I have given 
them, and deliver the letters which I shall 
write. But before you go, that I may be 
assured of your trustworthiness, and for your 
own eternal fortune, take this pledge and 
wear this badge.” 

As he spoke he fastened to Barney’s breast 
a small medal. It seemed to Paddy that his 
dream was realised, and that Father Mathew 
was the Leprechawn, and he exclaimed ex- 
citedly, “The luck penny! Uncle Barney, 
you’ve got the luck penny back again.” 

Father Mathew smiled significantly. “It 
is indeed a luck penny, my boy, and you shall 
have one, too, and shall carry one from me to 


THE LUCK PENNY 


155 


your father. Now say the pledge after me.” 
Paddy obeyed, ending with the words with 
which Father Mathew had begun his remark- 
able career: “Here goes, with the help of 
God.” 

“Plaze your riverence,” asked Barney, 
“how am I to get through this town, now 
that mornin’ has come, with the perliss 
a-watchin’ ? ” 

“And plaze your riverence,” asked the 
Widdy Callahan, “here’s Mr. O’Malley with 
his cart and a coffin, and he wants to know 
where’s the corp.” 

“ The one question answers the other,” re- 
plied Father Mathew, and stepping to the 
door he asked the undertaker to bring the 
rude coffin into the outer room and leave his 
cart before the door, and he would himself 
attend to the rest. Mr. O’Malley was very 
willing to surrender all duties to Father 
Mathew, as Policeman Hurley had told him 
that it was a case of small-pox. 

A short time after the undertaker had 
left, Father Mathew and Barney carried the 
empty coffin out again and replaced it in the 


156 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


cart, and Paddy mounting beside them, they 
drove away in the full light of morning, in 
the sight of the population of Shandon and of 
Hurley’s brother policeman, who supposed 
that Earney, who was driving by the side of 
Father Mathew, was the undertaker’s assist- 
ant. 

They drove directly to Blarney Castle, 
where Barney harnessed his donkey, and tak- 
ing an affectionate and grateful farewell of 
Father Mathew, set out for Killarney. 

Paddy and Finn went with him, for Rose 
Callahan had communicated the delightful 
news that Miss Kathleen and her family had 
passed through Cork two days before on their 
return to the old Hall. She would have gone 
with them but for Barney, but she would 
now follow them as soon as possible. Father 
Mathew deposited the coffin in the cave and 
returned the cart to the undertaker, Barney 
insisting on paying Mr. O’Malley’s charge for 
the funeral expenses. 

“ Sure, Blarney will be all the dearer to 
me now that Pm buried there,” he said. 

It seemed indeed that one Barney had been 


THE LUCK PENNY 


157 


buried and a new man had sprung into being 
in his place. The enthusiasm which he had 
poured out on political schemes was crystal- 
ised by Father Mathew into work as patriotic 
and more practical for the immediate relief 
of the sufferers from the famine. Paddy had 
no notion of the extent of the power for 
good which was in his uncle’s hands, but he 
was relieved to know that he was not a 
robber, and he had a superstitious feeling 
that now the luck penny was found all would 
be right. 

Paddy’s heart had been torn for a long 
time by conflicting longings to return to his 
mother and to deliver up the pig to Miss 
Kathleen, and now that he approached Kil- 
larney, and both desires centred in the same 
spot, his impatience knew no bounds. As 
they came in sight of the beautiful lakes 
the donkey seemed absolutely to crawl, 
and leaping from the cart Paddy announced 
his intention of running on in advance with 
Finn. 

“ Right you are,” said Barney, “for I 
must stop in the village on the business of 


158 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


his riverence, but tell my mother and sister 
I’ll be with them the night.” 

Paddy ran until he was out of breath, and 
Finn actually seemed to recognise the locality, 
for he galloped on ahead, and when they 
reached the cabin, dashed into the barrel 
which had served him as a sty and stood 
empty in the rear of the house. 

Never, not even when he looked longingly 
back upon it after his mother’s farewell bless- 
ing, had the region looked so beautiful to 
Paddy. It was the early spring. The ever- 
greens gave rich, dark touches here and there, 
the glossy holly and the beautiful arbutus 
were in full leaf, while every crumbling ruin 
was draped with ivy. The wayside was yel- 
low with gorse, the rhododendrons in Des- 
mond park were in bloom, and more tender 
trees and shrubs, loiterers in the spring pro- 
cession, were uncurling tiny leaves, or with 
their terminal buds giving a soft, purplish 
blur to the outline of twigs and branches. A 
wave of tender green was stealing over the 
landscape, encroaching on the purple reaches 
of the bare fields and on the browns and rus- 


THE LUCK PENNY 


159 


sets of last year’s grasses. Veils of delicate 
mist were rising from the lakes and drifting 
away over the mountains. It was the season 
of mystery and hope, and Paddy’s heart 
swelled with happiness. And yet the loneli- 
ness of the scene struck him with a certain 
vague foreboding. The season was quite far 
advanced, and yet none of the fields belong- 
ing to the small holders were ploughed, and 
no one was putting in potatoes. No one was 
cutting peat or passing along the road to a 
farm town. Away over there in the church- 
yard was the only faint evidence of life vis- 
ible in all the landscape, and that was con- 
nected with death: a little group stood 
around an open grave, and a priest, presum- 
ably Father Nooney, was officiating. But 
in the olden days, whenever there was a 
funeral, even of the poorest in the parish, 
the neighbours turned out with ready sym- 
pathy at the wake and funeral, whereas 
Paddy could only count five figures about 
this grave. 

As he passed the O’Flannagan cottage he 
thought he had never seen a more desolate 


1G0 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


dwelling. “ Surely,” he thought, “ the fam- 
ily must have been evicted,” for the thatch 
was off the roof and the door hanging by 
one hinge. But there at the well stood his 
old friend Rory, his companion in grief in 
Father Nooney’s catechism class, though so 
changed that he hardly knew him. Rory had 
been short and fat and jolly; he was now 
tall and emaciated, with a heart-break of des- 
olation in his eyes. * 

“Why, what’s come to you, Rory?” Paddy 
cried, as he seized his old comrade’s hand. 

“What’s come to all Killarney,” the boy 
replied — “ the famine and the fever.” 

“ It’s sick you are,” Paddy cried. “ Why 
don’t you go into the house and let your 
mother nurse you ? ” 

“ She’s dead.” 

“ Your sister, then, or your feyther ?” 

“ She’s dead, and he’s dead — they’re all 
dead, rest their souls. There isn’t a house in 
Killarney that’s escaped, Paddy.” 

“Not a house in Killarney, blessed Var- 
gin ! Does ye mane there’s any one dead at 
my house ? ” 









/ 



















































































THE LUCK PENNY 


163 


Rory nodded silently. Th$ beautiful land- 
scape seemed to whirl down, and Paddy sat 
down. 

“ Yees be afther m’aning me grandmither,” 
he said after a moment. ‘ ‘ She’s ould enough 
to die, puir body.” 

“No,” Rory replied, “she’d got used to 
livin’ without food, she said, and she’s alive 
yet and does the wurruk of the house. It 
was the littlest ones that went first afther 
there was no more milk, for the cow was 
found and tuk for the rint.” 

Paddy burst into tears. * ‘ The littlest ones ! 
Thin, is Ellen gone, the darlint, and Donal’, 
who used to go fishin’ with me ? ” 

“ Gone, ivery one of ’em.” 

“What! not my oldest sister Mary, not 
Mary, now?” 

‘ ‘ Ivery one of ’em. Mary held out the long- 
est, but she towld me one day when I tuk her 
a carrot, ‘I’ve got to 4 die, Rory,’ says she, 
‘ for my mither won’t ate as long as I’m livin’. 
She pushes the food onto my plate, and some- 
times the hunger overpowers me that bad 
that I ate it; but maybe she’ll ate when I’m 


/ 


164 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


gone.’ And so she did. But little good it 
did your mother, for she ” 

“Rory!” Paddy shrieked with a mighty 
cry, “ don’t be afther telling me my mother’s 
dead — don’t be telling me that, for I couldna 
bear it.” 

“ Find it out for yersel*, then,” said Rory, 
pointing to the group in the graveyard. 

The boy started to run, but the shock 
was too great, and he fainted at the first 
bound. Rory dashed some water in his face 
and said as he recovered: “I don’t know 
that she is dead for certain. I only know that 
she’s been sick two weeks with the fever, 
and they mostly dies, but maybe she isn’t 
dead yit.” 

“Thank yees for that, Rory,” Paddy re- 
plied feebly, and he hurried toward his home, 
repeating “ Maybe she isn’t dead yit.” 

And his mother was not dead. She had 
lain all night in a muttering delirium, talking 
of her oldest boy and repeating the mighty 
blessing with which she had blessed him 
when he left her. “ Christ’s saints stand be- 
twixt him and harum — St. Patrick and all the 


THE LUCK PENNY 


165 


rest of them, and God over all with His 
sthrong right arm.” 

Mother Maloney sat in the chimney and 
listened to the chirping of the crickets and 
muttered in response, “ There’s the thor- 
daal back. I haven’t heard them chirp since 
the cow was took. Well they know, the 
craythers, whether there’s food in the 
cabin for them. And what have they 
come for now, I wonder. Sure all the 
trenches are bare; there’s not a crumb of 
bread or a grain of male to set before thim. 
Sure, they’re hundreds of years old, and 
they betrayed our Lord when he was hidin’ 
from the Jews, sayin’: ‘ He’s here, he’s 
here,’ and for that rayson they run from 
all Christians; but it’s not I would offend 
them or refuse thim the bit sup if I had it. 
Tell me, ye craythers, why ye’ve come to an 
empty house.” 

The crickets were silent, but the sick 
woman made answer: “He’s coming — 
Paddy’s coming, and he’s got the luck 
penny. He loved his pig, but he loves 
his mother better, and he’ll kill Finn for 


166 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


her sake, and there’ll be roast pork for us 
all.” 

“They hear that, the craythers,” said 
Mother Maloney, crossing herself — “roast 
pork for us all. Begob, it isn’t likely but the 
thordaal spoke up at that word as they did to 
the Jews. He’s here, he’s here! ” 

As she spoke a shrill cry was heard out- 
side the house, and Mother Maloney crossed 
herself again and cried: “ It’s the banshee! 
The Maloneys have their banshee, that always 
come to foretell the death of any of the 
family.” 

“ It is not,” cried Dennis O’Learey, spring- 
ing up from his wife’s bedside — “ it’s Paddy’s 
pig, Finn ma Cool, squ’aling for his supper, 
and by the same token, she’s right, and Paddy 
himsel’ not far distant.” 

He went to the door and saw Paddy com- 
ing across the fields. “ Mavourneen, acushla 
ma chree, you are right,” he cried to his 
wife. “Paddy’s cornin’ home. Sure, it’s 
not so impolite as to be dying you are, with 
your boy coming down the road as fast as his 
legs can carry him.” 


THE LUCK PENNY 


167 


She opened her eyes, and they rested on 
Paddy with a smile of ineffable tenderness 
and then closed again. 

“ Love’s brought her back from the grave,” 
said Mother Maloney, 1 1 but it’s only food’ll 
kape her here. It’s just this minute she was 
longing for a bit of roast pork.” 

* * I’ll kill Finn,” Paddy cried. “I’ve 
no right to, but Miss Kathleen will forgive 
me.” 

As he left the cabin with his father they 
met Miss Kathleen, followed by a maid bear- 
ing a basket. 

“Miss Kathleen, Miss Kathleen,” cried 
the boy; “you’ve come in time to kape me 
from committing a sin. I was going to kill 
Finn, your pig, Miss Kathleen, for my 
mother’s starving; but here’s the crayther^ 
and he’s yours, and I’ve sought you all over 
Ireland, and praise be to the saints, I’ve got 
him to you safe at last ; but oh ! come and 
help my mother! ” 

“That I will, Paddy, for I heard she was 
suffering, though I did not know you were 
here, and I’ve food better suited to her con- 


168 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


dition than pork would be; but you shall not 
be denied that either, for I will send you down 
one of my father’s best Suffolks in exchange 
for Finn. You may drive him up to the Hall 
if you like, simply to keep him safe, for I fear 
you would not be allowed to possess him long 
here.” 

Slowly, in the days that followed, Mrs. 
O’Leary drifted back to health and strength, 
and little by little the dire distress about 
them was relieved, at first by the distribution 
of the American funds brought by Barney Ma- 
loney, and later by the first good potato crop 
in three years. 

Squire Desmond, too, had met with good 
fortune during his absence from Ireland, 
and had come back with plans and means 
for the establishment of a manufactory of 
tweeds, which would give employment to 
a large number of the inhabitants of the 
region. 

Finn ma Cool lived to a green old age, 
growing more and more intelligent and 
dying at last, as Paddy declared, “ from an 
excess of eddication.” 


THE LUCK PENNY 


1G9 


On the occasion of Miss Kathleen’s birth- 
day, when Paddy was requested to show 
Finn’s accomplishments at the Hall, he dis- 
covered while the entertainment was in prog- 
ress, and when it was too late to supply the 
deficiency, that he had no dainties to place be- 
hind the swinging discs. He had already 
asked the pig to spell his name when this 
occurred to him, and he expected certain 
failure. 

What was his surprise when Finn indicated 
the proper letters, showing that he not 
only understood the question, but had ac- 
tually learned to spell. Paddy could hardly 
believe the evidence of his own senses until 
he had put his pet through all his usual 
questions, and found that he spelled every 
word correctly without the help of any trick 
or suggestion from him. 

As he grew older Finn became not only 
wiser but better, entirely dropping his old 
vice of poaching, though this was possibly 
occasioned by an excess of fat and laziness. 

One day Miss Kathleen showed Paddy the 
humorous sketch which she had made of 


170 


PADDY O’LEAREY 


Finn on the day that she left Ireland, and to 
which she now added a companion piece. 



“ This is the pig who, nose in air 
And small tail crisply curled, 
While all the future seemed most fair, 
Set out to see the world.” 



EXPERIENCE. 

“ This is the pig, the self-same pig, 

Potential pork and ham, 

Who, disappointed, tells his friends 
He’s found the world a sham.” * 

Notwithstanding the bettered condition of 
the country, Barney, who had had a taste of 
the New World, could not be induced to re- 
main permanently in Ireland, but after his 
marriage with Rose Callahan, a wedding 
which will be famous in Killarney for many 
a day, took his bride and his mother-in-law 

* Verses by Mrs. Poultney Bigelow. 


THE LUCK PENNY 


171 


back to America. He wrote regularly to his 
mother, sending her considerable sums of 
money, and she had the satisfaction before 
her death to hear that he had become an aider- 
man in the city of New York. He frequently 
invited Paddy to come over and “make his 
fortin,” but the boy could not be induced 
again to leave his mother. Paddy rose to be 
foreman of the new factory and a most in- 
fluential man in his native place. Dennis 
O’Learey reformed his drinking habits. The 
temperance medal proved indeed a luck 
penny for the entire household, and to Kil- 
larney as well. It seemed as if the mantle of 
Father Mathew had fallen upon Paddy, for' 
he busied himself earnestly in winning all 
his associates to the temperance cause, for 

he had learned that 

“ Man may work with the great God — yea ours 
This privilege, all others how beyond — 

Effectually the planet to subdue, 

And break old savagehood in claw and tusk, 

To draw our fellows up as with a cord 
Of love unto their high appointed place, 

Till from our state, barbaric and abhorred, 

We do arrive unto a royal race, 

To be the blest companions of the Lord.” 


[the end.] 







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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



□ □□ 2117^53 



